Buffalo Boy's Blog

As Toyota and Honda and other foreign car makers continue to outsell Ford, GM and Chrysler, really the US car companies have only themselves to blame.

As fuel prices go up they refuse to change their models to reflect what the American consumer wants. Economy and a car that performs consistently. I have owned two Toyotas and both have lasted me 8 and now 7 years respectfully. Both have taken well over 100,000 miles on them and my first could have kept going.

My current Toyota is a 2001 Corolla that gets me anywhere from 27-35 miles per gallon. What US carmakers are not doing is improving the technology to get higher fuel economy. They can't sell US trucks and other vehicles that get crappy economy overseas because other countries ahve stricter fuel economy standards. Therefore, many US cars and trucks are obsolete overseas.  

So, the only country that will buy US made, poor economy cars are US citizens. And now, even US citizens are going other places to buy their cars because gas prices are driving them to do so.

If US car makers don't wake up soon, it will be more than just the local auto plants around WNY shutting down, it will be the whole companies.