LETTERS

Automotive Industries,  June, 2001  

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Cut-Rate ate Catalysts

The Cut-Rate Cats article in the April (2001) issue was interesting.

It's always enlightening to see engineering create technology to improve performance while reducing cost. This was my initial thought until I read the age testing to 100,000 miles from Catalytic Solutions Inc.

Unlike TVs, computers, appliances, etc., the cost of an automobile has gone up. If technology can't make the vehicle cheaper, it should at least make it last longer. All component testing should be a robust 250,000 miles, and the average automobile's major components should be trouble-free at least this long. This would match the fantastic job the industry has done fighting body corrosion.

Albert Frediani

Chelmsford, Mass.

Just a brief note saying AI did an excellent job on the Cut-Rate Cats article. I thought you presented a balanced picture of what is happening in the (catalyst) industry.

Tim Truex

Catalytic Solutions, Inc.

Oxnard, Calif.

Portugal, Not Spain

I have enjoyed your magazine for years now! Regarding Lindsay Brooke's April (2001) editorial, the Ford Galaxy is not built in Spain but in Setubal, Portugal. You make good reference of this in your Global Joint Ventures Chart on your website: www.ai-online.com.

J. Brunat

via e-mail

Audi Lays an Egg

Here's my heretical view on the Audi TT: It looks like a poached egg. (Just like Leonard Lord said about the Morris Minor, that well-known "close" competitor to the Beetle).

Ken Strachan

Gibbs Technologies Ltd

Nuneaton, Warks, U.K.

Still Youth-inizing

Andrew Cummins' "Youth-ination" column (AI April 2001) was brought to my attention by a mid-30s associate in the auto engineering community. As a 25-year veteran of the industry and in my early 50s, I've been preaching a thing called "technical continuum" for many years. Youth-ination seems to be the logical progression that occurs once technical continuum gets destroyed.

Technical continuuum was the way things were done when I started my engineering career so many years ago. Senior management at that time was staffed with mid-50-to-early-60-year-old veterans who'd gone through the wars and survived.

Those guys KNEW industry, the job and the technology and assured that it would be passed on to the next generation(s). It is no wonder that these guys knew how to solve problems. They'd done so before and kept their replacements from "reinventing wheels."

Dennis Novotny

Toyota Technical Center.

"You'll be there whenever they need the council and wisdom that experience brings." What a pipe dream! I was at Oldsmobile in the 1970s and '80s when they brought in the youthful Chevrolet guys. Their mantra was, "You Olds guys don't know what your doing," (after 12 years of million-plus sales). "We're here to show you how to do it right." And, they did it too! It's called the euthanasia of Oldsmobile.

Raymond Juracek

South Lyon, Mich.

Don't forget that the paradigms of some of those old Car Guys got us into some of the troubles we're still trying to get out of today. As for me (an old 50-year-old-fogey), give me youth to work with. They're more creative, open minded, less prejudiced, definitely more energized, culturally diversified, smarter and aren't afraid to use computers! Sounds to me like you're getting "old" and romanticizing the 1970's pain.

Name Withheld

The engineering industry in the U.K has been shrinking for a long time; as recently as the 1970s we had huge conglomerates and jobs for life. No more!

We had a big expansion of lower-grade universities (polytechnics), which allowed many people to get degrees who would not have had that opportunity in the previous generation.

Result: When I was younger, I was distressed by time-serving older guys who distrusted younger guys with degrees, and used fair means or foul to stop us getting promoted past them. I had to work my way around them, often by changing employer.

As an older guy, I am now distressed to see younger guys promoted too fast, and moving on before the damage they have done becomes apparent.

Three other things bug me: people who are good at interviews and useless in the job; managers who won't fire them when a hiring mistake becomes apparent; and managers with no feel for people.

Name Withheld

I turned 40 this year. In my industry (technology) that is like having one foot in the grave. And the auto industry isn't the only one getting "generic" execs. The reason most of the dot-coms failed is that their execs "did NOT grow up in the business," just like a lot of the current auto execs. All of us who have grown up in a technology business were waiting for the bubble to burst. We're only surprised it took so long.

Name Withheld

I couldn't agree more with Andrew Cummins, and I am only 33 years old, which I consider young.

I also want to alert you to another gender-bender entering the auto world. Did you notice the age of the woman taking over Saturn? She is 37 years young! Come on, who can run a GM division at that tender age?