Did you hear? The automotive biz is rockin' and rollin'. General Motors—that's right, the same GM that trudged to bankruptcy court earlier this year—reported 2009 growth of 40 percent. Heck, the industry overall reported 90 percent growth in August. Simply amazing!

Oh, I forgot to mention: You have to move to China to join the party.

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GM filed for bankruptcy June 1, and nearly every editor, reporter, and blogger seemed to want to jump on the bandwagon and jump all over GM's executives for decades of mismanagement. I didn't think that was fair, and I said so in a blog on June 4. Boy, was I wrong!

Everyone knows that U.S. automakers ain't what they used to be. At one time GM had nearly 50 percent of the U.S. market. Its sheer size made it an unwieldy beast. Over the years many automakers rolled out an increasing number of models (expensive!) and found themselves beset with encroaching union demands, increasing foreign competition, growing legacy costs, and so on.

Did the folks in GM's executive suite address these issues, or simply blame them?

In an article titled "The auto bailout: How we did it," Steven Rattner provides his perspective on the troubles that befell the automotive industry and, in the cases of GM and Chrysler, their executives' reactions. Of all the people involved in the automotive bailout plan, Rattner had perhaps the best view of all: That of a person with no automotive industry experience. A graduate of Brown University who has worked as a journalist (an economics correspondent for the New York Times), financier, and private equity investor, he was appointed by President Obama to the Treasury Department to be the head of the Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry.

Certainly GM executives enjoy generous salaries and substantial perks. I won't ruin the suspense by quoting too much from the article, but by his description, many execs didn't put forth much effort; quite a few just went along for the ride. Oh, and guess what? Rick Wagoner, GM's CEO at the time, blamed the financial crisis, oil prices, the dollar-yen exchange rate, and the UAW for any and all problems. And I had such high hopes for him. He really let me down.

According to Rattner, even during the bankruptcy, GM's executives couldn't be bothered to put much thought into running the company. "Under the previous administration's loan agreements, Treasury was to approve every GM transaction of more than $100 million that was outside of the normal course. From my first day at Treasury, PowerPoint decks would arrive from GM (we quickly concluded that no decision seemed to be made at GM without one) requesting approvals. We were appalled by the absence of sound analysis provided to justify these expenditures."

I prowled around the Internet recently, looking for news on the current state of the U.S. automakers. You need a machete to cut through the thicket of not-so-important stories these days—balloon boy this, Rosie O'Donnell that—but I did find a handful of tidbits.

First, the capacity utilization in the automotive industry, which is often in the high 70s to low 80s, fell to less than 37.5 in June. It was 51.2 in September. The industry is still in terrible shape, but it's not as bad as it once was.

Apparently it's too early to talk much about revenues or profitability, but I did find some other news regarding the two that slipped into, and emerged from, bankruptcy earlier this year:

•October 19: Chrysler restarts PT Cruiser production

"Chrysler Group LLC on Monday resumed production of its PT Cruiser for the first time since early August …"

•October 20: General Motors bringing jobs, money to Marion Referring to a plant in Marion, Ind., "General Motors announced that it is investing $364 million in the plant expansion."

•October 21: GM commits $202 million for Chevy Volt engine plant "General Motors Co. will spend $202 million to renovate its Flint Engine South factory to build 1.4-liter four-cylinder engines for the highly anticipated Chevrolet Volt—and for a small car that likely will be even more crucial to Chevy's future success, the Cruze."

Are these moves based on sound business planning or business as usual? Time will tell.

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Psssst. Hey … down here. I’m the headline about 20 column inches below the story about Balloon Boy. Keep looking down. Down. Just below that expose about Polanski. See me? Good. Don't tell anyone, but manufacturing's getting a bit better. In fact, manufacturing may be the thing that pulls us all out of the economic doldrums; at least that's how some are reacting to the Federal Reserve data released Friday.

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Alternative power trains, advanced propulsion technologies, and automotive battery power are all the buzz.

At the NanoBusiness Alliance conference I attended in September in Chicago, a great deal of discussion centered around announcements of the $2 billion U.S. federal grants awarded from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act designated for alternative-energy battery technology development. The crowd consensus was that the lion's share of the funds went to fund lithium-ion battery technology research.

The U.S. is the world's leading consumer of lithium and lithium compounds, according to the Mineral Information Institute. "It is estimated that the U.S. has approximately 760,000 tons of lithium. The resources in the rest of the world are estimated to be 12 million tons. The leading producers and exporters of lithium ore materials are Chile and Argentina. China and Russia have lithium ore resources also."

One audience member voiced what I think is an astute observation related to the goal of developing energy forms in the U.S. that reduce dependence on foreign sources for energy. "In embracing lithium-ion battery technology, are we trading our energy dependence on one region of the world for dependence on another?"

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The August issue of "Stamping News Brief" (SNB) featured comments from an SNB reader responding to an item in the previous month's issue about employment in the metal stamping sector. This reader said, "I am soon to be unemployed, and there are really not many prospects around here for employment as an engineer. I currently am traveling 55 miles one way to work for 25 percent less than a year ago. As more and more people here in the U.S. have to accept lower paying jobs, I really do not know where the off-shoring companies expect to find their markets. China sure is not much of a market.

"[The company I work for] is a former automotive supplier with a <10PPM, but yet all of the former Big 3 are off-shoring the parts we made. With our bailout money, they are transferring our equipment. I used to be a staunch buy-American, but I believe [domestic automakers] have lost about 150 potential automobile buyers here. I sure hope they find their market in Costa Rica."

The August SNB then described how some talk show hosts and others in the U.S. have been calling for a boycott of GM and Chrysler and asked subscribers about their car buying plans.

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Buried within the Institute for Supply Management™'s July Manufacturing ISM Report on Business® is a telling quote from a metal fabricator.

"No stimulus for manufacturing."

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Editor's note: This post is from STAMPING Journal® columnist Bernard Swiecki, a director, market analysis, in the economics business group with the Center for Automotive Research.

How bankruptcy and restructuring are changing the Detroit Three—What it means for suppliers

With GM and Chrysler both undergoing bankruptcy restructuring procedures, the North American automotive industry of late 2009 and beyond will be forever different from that which preceded it.

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This blog post is rooted in a discussion my husband and I had yesterday regarding a news item I ran across about a 'green' race car that runs on vegetable oil and waste chocolate. I get vegetable oil, but where on earth does waste chocolate come from? Godiva, Ghirardelli, Hershey, Fannie May, and other chocolate candy companies? An admitted chocoholic, I don’t understand waste chocolate; waist chocolate makes far more sense to me.

After talking about what a shame it is to use chocolate as fuel, we began talking about 'green' automotive initiatives in general. My husband's comments, courtesy of Bill Nye, the Science Guy, had me googling faster than an SSC Ultimate Aero.

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"It's paid for" … three little words that have come to mean so much to so many. Could they have contributed to the automakers' troubles?

Case in point—yesterday my colleague, Tim, and I were talking about his recent new-car purchase. You may have read about the mishap involving his 11-year-old vehicle. Clouding his excitement about owning a brand-new car is the realization that he now has car payments. I understand completely.

My family has two vehicles, vintage 2000 and 2002. In spite of their ages and the fact that newer models look different and have more bells and whistles, we are quite fond of these automobiles. That they are paid for makes them even more attractive to us. I commented to Tim that I have less than 100,000 miles on my 2000 Jeep and intend to drive it for as long as it will run—or as long as I have someone to service it (we'll get to that).

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Shape Corp., a supplier of car bumpers based in Grand Haven, Mich., laid off 630 people since December. But as Chrysler plans to reopen plants, the company reportedly hopes to hire back 80 people.

Officials at Die-Matic Corp., a Brooklyn Heights, Ohio, metal stamper, told The Wall Street Journal that 65 percent of its business still serves the automotive market, but the remaining revenue streams come from such sectors as mining, construction, and small appliances. The company also is looking to the medical industry for more work.

These kinds of stories have peppered the news in recent weeks. They're reports that show what's really happening on the ground. Economic pundits continue to argue about what direction the economy will take. Will it continue its upward climb or sink back down to become a double-dip recession? Meanwhile, manufacturers have been quietly making adjustments.

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