I'm surprised Bart! I have to agree with you on this one, at least about the big vehicles that GM/Ford are pushing nowadays.
Ford and Chevy are burning the furniture to heat the house -- it's current mega-corporation bahavior in all industries; suck the cash out ASAP the future be damned. Tax loopholes that allowed truck chassis to be turned into luxury cars in cooperation with politics and good marketing instead of long-term research and building of reputation (and perception of practicality). Plus plain-old out of touch and bloated management. The huge employee health expenses that really are hurting them aren't due to "people using healthcare too much" as implied by Newsweek (as if!) but insurance-industry-driven artifically high healthcare costs, more corporate profiteering. American ingenuity still exists, but not at that scale of business.