The End of Detroit by Micheline Maynard Book Analysis

Micheline Maynard goes into great detail in her book The End of Detroit: How the Big Three Lost Their Grip on the American Car Market, to explain how American or domestic car companies have lost their customers to foreign car companies. The rise of cars in America allowed America to spread out, led to the building of infrastructure, created suburbs, and connected America. Henry Ford and his creation of the assembly line allowed cars to be produced faster and easier which let them be sold for cheaper prices. This allowed more and more people to be able to afford a car. The End of Detroit: How the Big Three Lost Their Grip on the American Car Market explains how the main carmakers in America lost their grip on their consumers in the early 2000s. Maynard states “From small cars to luxury cars, from family sedans to minivans, vehicles made by foreign-based companies are escalating in popularity, attracting an unending stream of converts every year from among owners of vehicles built by Detroit’s Big Three.” 

At this time, the leading car producers in America were Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors. Domestic cars were the only choices for Americans to buy. However, foreign car companies such as Toyota, Hyundai, Honda, BMW, and Nissan have found ways to make their cars more efficient, better quality, more dramatic styling, and better performance all for cheaper prices. In addition to this, American car companies had a lack of customer service and lack of willingness to change so they lost their leading roles. This increases their popularity across American consumers. Soon the Big 3 American car brands will lose their popularity and lead among American car buyers. Maynard’s main premise for writing this book was to show and explain how foreign car companies began to rise up and become popular across America which soon causes the domestic car companies to lose customers and begin to crash. She states “In 1979, when Chrysler teetered perilously close to bankruptcy, the nation gasped at the idea that one of America’s industrial giants might shut its doors.”  The loss of their consumers was not immediate, but it was happening gradually in the late 90s. 

It is no secret that Maynard believes the fall of the Big Three was their own doing. However, she was not alone in this thinking. Paul Ingrassia wrote the book Crash course: the American automobile industry's road to bankruptcy and bailout--and beyond. This book also discusses how the fall of the Big Three was caused by their own actions and greed rather than the actions of consumers. Ingrassia describes how these car companies; General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler, gained their customer base, made a name for themselves, became the leading car companies in the nation, and then eventually how they lost everything they had. He goes into specific details regarding exactly how these companies lost their top spot, one of them caused by unions and the other being their refusal to listen to their customers’ wants and needs.  

A majority of Ingrassia’s book discusses how labor unions and the UAW led to the demise of American car companies. However, the last section of his book contains interviews and quotes from those who were involved in the downfall of these companies. The overarching problem was that the people running the Big Three were in it for the money and actually lacked experience in the automobile industry. He states “…they would ignore all Detroit’s conventional wisdom about what couldn’t be done and take their guidance from common sense instead of car sense.”  By saying this, he shows that the CEOs did what they wanted in order to try to make the most profit. What they wanted, however, was different from what their consumers wanted. They were greedy and refused to listen to those who knew better which led to mismanagement and eventually, bankruptcy. Maynard and Ingrassia have similar outlooks on the fall of the Big Three. Because of this, Maynard has a traditional way of thinking. Everything that she mentions throughout her book is factual, correct, and historically accurate. 

Throughout The End of Detroit, Micheline Maynard makes several different points and brings up multiple different arguments. These points include the Big 3 have lost their role as leading car companies throughout the United States, they lost their role to foreign companies, they did it to themselves, Toyota will be the leading car company within the next couple of years, the competitors listen to their consumers and make more innovative cars for cheaper prices, and the foreign car companies were able to find a niche. It is clear that the Big Three once dominated their home field but soon lost it to foreign companies. Maynard states “Four of every 10 vehicles sold in the United States in 2003 will be built by companies with foreign nameplates. That is a vivid contrast to 1960 when General Motors alone controlled 60 percent of the automobile market.”  Maynard states that the main reason this happened was that these American companies did not listen to their consumers and were led more by the money and less by the consumer wants. She explains “Deals, not product development, have driven GM, Ford and Chrysler in the past decade—and no wonder.”  as well as “There has long been a saying in Detroit that General Motors, with its huge credit, financing and mortgage operations, is less of a car company than a bank that builds cars.”  Here, she is showing that the people behind all of the decision-making for domestic car companies have little to no knowledge about cars. These people were from finance backgrounds with little knowledge about automobiles and management which was the ultimate downfall of their companies. 

Another main point that Maynard carries throughout the book is how these foreign car companies swooped in and won over the American consumers. She explains how foreign car companies kept expanding their product line in order to appeal to all different kinds of people. They made small cars, luxury cars, family cars, minivans, sedans in order to attract the widest range of consumers they can. In contrast to domestic carmakers, the managers for the foreign car companies knew how to appeal to their consumers and make safe and sleek cars for cheaper prices. In the book, it says “The companies that threaten Detroit are led by men who understand vehicles inside and out, who have dedicated their careers to meeting their customers’ needs.”  Companies like Toyota, Hyundai, BMW who are native to foreign countries noticed that they were gaining popularity among American consumers. Because of this, they put all of their efforts into creating cars that appealed to American consumers. They listened to what the consumers wanted. She states “With their efficient development methods, their focus on manufacturing, and most important, experienced engineers in critical management jobs, the foreign companies never forgot that they were in business to develop top-quality cars and trucks that appealed to customers, as opposed to rental-car models and government fleets.” 

One of the final points that Micheline Maynard makes is that Toyota is going to be one of the biggest car companies in the world, especially in America. She says “By the middle of the decade, Ghosn is expected to take control at both Renault and Nissan, coordinating the attack of what he hopes will become one of the world’s leading automotive giants.”  As Toyota began to become popular in the United States, they created truck plants here in order to push their way into the light truck market. By doing this, they are breaking out of being just a Japanese company and working to become a global automobile company. Maynard states “It has $34 billion in cash and $100 billion in assets, and it is basically able to act as its own bank… but it also would be unthinkable without its strength in the United States.”  This shows just how powerful Toyota has become and how targeting Americans with new models of cars, new designs, new colors, and new safety features allowed them to become one of the most powerful car companies in the world.

Micheline Maynard shows a lot of bias throughout her book. For a vast majority of the book, she is continuously putting down the Big Three and criticizing how they functioned and eventually led to their downfall. She says “There has long been a saying in Detroit that General Motors, with its huge credit, financing and mortgage operations, is less of a car company than a bank that builds cars.”  Here, she is criticizing the managers of domestic car companies and condemning them for their overspending, debt, and lack of knowledge of cars. While this is all true, she has a very negative tone when discussing Ford, GM, and Chrysler. On the other hand, when she begins talking about foreign car companies, she praises their management and marketing skills. She discusses how innovative they were, how they expanded their companies in positive ways, and how they won over the American consumers. While both of these sides are correct (the Big Three slacked off and lost their customers and foreign brands stepped up and gained these consumers), the negative words she uses to describe the Big Three and their managers show bias.