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While your point that 'gas guzzling' can be a pejorative term is well taken, I have to disagree on some others. Some people need heavy vehicles to perform their career functions, but others just embraced the macho empowerment personna enhanceent embodied by big, powerful vehicles promoted by Detroit. That's why huge heavy SUVs became the vehicles of choice for soccer moms among others. These vehicles are going begging now that the emperor's clothes have been revealed for what they really were: inefficient, over-the-top dinosaurs that blatantly ignored the environmental and economic realities of our time. I believe Detroit will respond to the challenge to compete for well performing fuel efficient vehicles with a vengeance now that clarity in the world marketplace has been achieved. In fact, I believe American industry as a whole will enjoy a resurgence/revolution as we lead the world in reacting to the new realities. So, the preciptous rise in fuel prices may turn into the biggest boom...(Read more of this comment) American industry has experienced since WWII...if I'm right.(Show less of this comment)

It is a common, but silly, notion that Detroit makes cars people do not want to buy. After all, someone has been buying them. It is hubris, I think, to believe any of us know better than those in the industry what 'people want to buy' but I've heard many people, over the years, make that claim. What they are really saying is their taste does not conform to the taste of Detroit's customers.

Regarding 'gas guzzling' cars. There is no such thing. There is no vehicle designed to use more fuel than it has to. There are only bigger and smaller, heavier and lighter vehicles. 'Gas guzzling' is a pejorative used by people who don't require a larger vehicle to demean those that do require a truck or van or prefer a larger vehicle for whatever reason. It's a term intended to limit choice.

The US auto industry has been an object of derision throughout my lifetime, as has the phone company, the oil industry and, more recently, the pharmaceutical industry. Detroit has been subject ...(Read more of this comment)to a continuous river of laws and law suits intended to control or punish. If the executives lack vision, perhaps it is because only the mundane goes unpunished. We hate them. They cease to exist. What's the problem?(Show less of this comment)