The US auto industry is a behemoth. The big three companies, known as D3 or Detroit 3 being Ford, GM and Fiat-Chrysler. The industry is responsible for billions of dollars a year in revenue and over 4 million jobs in the US. These companies have long storied pasts, innovative leaders that are famous the world over, they have seen huge swings in profits, some have declared bankruptcy. US auto industry workers have been unionized since 1941, starting with Ford. Their strength and success led to GM and Chrysler being the largest employers in the US in the 1950's. These two companies filed for bankruptcy in 2009 and were bailed out by the government with massive loans to keep them afloat. In 2014, there was an average of 2 recalls announced for defects on cars in the US. This was an all time record for the overall industry and GM had the most with 80 affecting nearly 26 million …show more content…
This is not necessarily surprising considering the bad press from last year. In the list of 27 auto makers the highest ranked US brand at 3rd place was Lincoln, a part of the Ford motor company. Also in the top 10 were were cadillac at 9th and Buick in 10th place. These survey's are conducted by many different organizations, only a few of them stand out as true indications of market trends. J.D. power, Consumer Reports and ACSI are the most respected. Interestingly, the company with the highest satisfaction was Lexus which is a Toyota subsidiary and 2nd was Acura which is the luxury brand of Honda. The survey asks people that have already purchased their cars how happy they are with them. There is a propensity for most people that have purchased something to say that it's the best, essentially affirming their choice was the best. They would also be inclined to exaggerate the problems they've had, if dissatisfied, as a sort of revenge against the