David Maraniss Quotes

[Could] motor cars could be produced [in a country like Germany] and sold in competition in the American market . . . .In my opinion it is impossible to reach the conclusion that competition from without can ever be any factor whatsoever?

Starting in the 1970s, American cars started to lose market share to foreign cars. It was clear what was happening - these better-made foreign car companies were encroaching on the U.S., and the U.S. car makers had less than half of their own country's market.

I drive Fords, and I've driven American cars all my life, and I want to have a strong American manufacturing sector, especially in automobiles.

When I was at BMW and Aston Martin, I realized how difficult and how many resources it takes to create a car - let alone a car company.

If you think about jeans or phones or television, we are used to new brands popping up right and left. But in the car industry, we grew up with Mercedes, BMW, General Motors, and Ford, and nobody can remember during his or her upbringing a new car brand coming to life.

It's harder than ever to build an enduring company. As soon as a product strikes a nerve with customers, competitors emerge globally because the costs to start are so low.

In the 1970s, Japan moved into the U.S. turf with its televisions, cars, chips, and steel. But if you think about it, the only business Japan destroyed was the U.S. television industry.

Germans make nice cars.

In addition to this, they already have a fuel cell car on the road in Japan. It is subsidized from within the corporation because they are still at a high cost.

To make a very specific car only for India - where you don't know where the segments are tomorrow or will it shift - is tough.

If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25 cars that got 1,000 MPG.

In terms of building consumer products, the U.S. and China are ahead of India. The interesting opportunity for India is whenever there is a disruption in technology, it gives every country a chance to leapfrog and take a lead. To take an example, China is leaping ahead in growing the China electric vehicle ecosystem.

I don't think the disruptor and the business model of a disruptor necessarily is an indication of the topography of the future. If it did, you would say then that everyone will make high-end electric cars, when the answer is clearly no.

First we build people, then we build cars.

I will build a car for the great multitude.

Father made the most popular cars in the world; I want to make the best.

Ford can't sell trucks currently, and GM is not selling as many cars as it would like to. That is a problem of product and pricing, not a systemic problem of abandonment by consumers.

That so-called feminine ardor for clothes shopping had been flagging for some time. Between 1980 and 1986, at the same time that women were buying more houses, cars, restaurant dinners, and health care services, they were buying fewer pieces of clothing-from dresses to underwear.

Every major industry was once a growth industry. But some that are now riding a wave of growth enthusiasm are very much in the shadow of decline. Others that are thought of as seasoned growth industries have actually stopped growing. In every case, the reason growth is threatened, slowed, or stopped is not because the market is saturated. It is because there has been a failure of management.

GM is operating in an intensely competitive global environment and reaching this tentative agreement allows us to continue to build momentum in the market with the award-winning vehicles and components produced in Canada.

I think that as the market moves and costs get higher and fares get higher, it always creates opportunity. That's been the cycle over the years.

The mistake managers often make is defining their industry too narrowly. Digital's market share in the minicomputer market stayed very robust even as it fell off the cliff. Disruption seems to come out of nowhere, but if you know what to look for, you can spot important developments well before the market does.

In less than twenty-five years . . . the motor-car will be obsolete, because the aeroplane will run along the ground as well as fly over it.

I don'tsell cars; I sell engines. The cars I throw in for free since something has tohold the engines in.

As you craft a plan to expand to adjacent markets, don't disrupt: Avoid competition as much as possible.