Stocks: (DCX)(TM)(HMC)(GM)The recalls of Toyota’s have not dented the auto giant’s reputation for quality. In the latest annual Consumer Reports survey of vehicle reliability, Toyota did remarkably well again.Of the 47 vehicles singled out for the best reliability, 38 were Japanese and 21 were from Toyota. Honda was next with 11. Only six were built by US manufaturers.Of the 45 least reliable cars, half were from US-based companies. Twelve came from GM.Is anyone surprised that inventories at the Big Three are at troubling levels.The news about both inventories and quality come at a particularly bad time for Chrysler. While Daimler’s Mercedes units does well, the parent company’s results are dragged down by its US unit.The head of Chrysler, Tom LaSorda, may have to go. Slow sales and high inventories lead to an operating loss at the unit in Q3. And, Q4 could bring the same. Structural changes that might help costs cannot be put in place until next year. Mr. LaSorda could be blammed for not having made the expense savings earlier.Firing management will probably not help the Detroit car companies. It may make boards feel better, but until the quality of the products improves that “feel good” glow is just temporary.Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at [email protected]. He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.
As Pressure Mounts At Chysler, Quality Issues Dog Detroit
Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.
McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.
His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.
A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.
TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.
McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.
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