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Byline: Keith Crain Barring any difficulties, it would appear that the standoff between the UAW and General Motors is slowly ending. Negotiations were far more difficult than anyone thought they [...]

Byline: Keith Crain I spent some time last week with the folks from the National Automobile Dealers Association who were in Detroit for some meetings and publicity, mainly talking about [...]

Byline: Keith Crain There is a great deal of talk these days about electric cars and gasoline cars, including questions about range and ease of refueling. There are skeptics as [...]

Byline: Keith Crain There is no doubt that the executive branch of our federal government is embroiled in plenty of conflicts these days, ranging from small to very large. The [...]

Byline: Keith Crain Last week's media days at the Frankfurt motor show got a lot of attention, even with a growing number of automaker no-shows. It's still a very interesting [...]

Byline: Keith Crain This week all roads are headed to the Frankfurt motor show, which seems to have a slightly different personality this time around. There are still plenty of [...]

Byline: Keith Crain He was one of the best. I remember my first meeting with Ferdinand Piech, when he was a rising star at Audi after having been booted out [...]

Byline: Keith Crain Certainly one of the biggest and most complicated of this industry's recall messes is the disaster surrounding what has become known as dieselgate. What started as a [...]

Byline: Keith Crain Like most everyone else, I am convinced that someday we will see electric vehicles as well as autonomous vehicles on streets around the world. Unlike a lot [...]

Byline: Keith Crain Ross Perot died last week. He showed up in Detroit like a whirlwind, somewhat typical of his life. He was one of the original disrupters, and he [...]

Byline: Keith Crain The auto industry seems to have more than its share of icons. It just said goodbye to another one with the death of Lee Iacocca at age [...]

Byline: Keith Crain Like most everyone in the automotive world, I have watched the Carlos Ghosn saga unfold over the last seven months with little or no resolution. The tides [...]

Byline: Keith Crain I was talking to a friend recently, and he commented on just how much the automobile industry is changing and how rapidly. It doesn't seem that long [...]

Byline: Keith Crain There was a famous comedy duo that had a humorous routine called 'Who's on First?' The shtick was about the confusion between a baseball player and the [...]

Byline: Keith Crain I am constantly amazed by watching the auto industry rush headlong into an abyss of electric cars while consumers have no idea it's just around the corner. [...]

Byline: Keith Crain I have no idea how long it will take for a safe, fully autonomous vehicle to enter production. I am sure that it will take a lot [...]

Byline: Keith Crain It's not often that we get to see Japanese justice quite as vividly as we have now in the way the Japanese have been treating Carlos Ghosn. [...]

Byline: Keith Crain The auto industry, with the help of some national governments around the world, is rapidly plunging into a massive bet on vehicle electrification with little or no [...]

Byline: Keith Crain In the last couple of weeks, I spent some time with a couple of dealer principals who probably are 40 years apart in age. But they had [...]

Byline: Keith Crain I was always of the opinion that every emerging nation in the world wanted its own auto assembly plant, and that once it got a plant it [...]

Byline: Keith Crain If we are looking at a mild downturn in car sales this year, then every dealer who has not already embraced the used-car business had better start [...]

Byline: KEITH CRAIN When our new governor was elected last fall, I had great expectations that, unlike in Washington, we would see her and the legislative branch working cooperatively and [...]

Byline: Keith Crain A mid the euphoria surrounding electric vehicles, I have wondered what would happen to the huge economic structure that has been built around our interstate highway system [...]

Byline: Keith Crain For years, automakers have insisted that dealerships representing a particular brand should all look the same, instead of allowing retailers to individualize stores as they see fit. [...]

Byline: Keith Crain Once a year the National Automobile Dealers Association has a big blast at its annual convention -- this year in San Francisco, and next year back in [...]

Byline: Keith Crain I have no idea exactly how many auto shows there are in the world, but I know there are plenty. Whether big international shows such as Frankfurt [...]

Byline: Keith Crain Next week is the start of the North American International Auto Show in Detroit and by all accounts, after 30 years, it will be the last January [...]

Byline: Keith CrainThere are plenty of services to help you buy a car and lots of places to go to find out what your used car is worth. It seems [...]

Byline: KEITH CRAINIf you happen to be a Republican, you might want to skip this.Even before the new governor was inaugurated next month, the Republicans in the Michigan Legislature are [...]

Byline: Keith CrainI get nervous when governments try to pick winners and losers because they always seem to get it wrong.The U.S. government has handed out huge subsidies on electric [...]

Byline: Keith Crain At least a couple of times a day, someone innocently asks me to participate in some sort of survey. They are trying to mine some more information [...]

Byline: Keith Crain The midterm elections are over, the attorney general has been removed, and we are settling in for two years in Washington that promise to be filled with [...]

Byline: Keith Crain We've all heard the story of the business owner's son who returns from college and warns his father that a recession is just around the corner and [...]

Byline: Keith Crain Autonomous vehicles are being tested all over the world these days. Yet in the U.S., the government still does not insist that these unproven prototypes conform to [...]

Byline: Keith Crain Ford last week named one of its executives, Elena Ford, as the company's chief customer experience officer. It's a good move. In today's world, with so many [...]

Byline: Keith Crain We are seeing a huge decline in civility. For some reason, many among us seem to be happiest when a rally turns into a mob. We have [...]

Byline: Keith Crain With all the tariffs being placed on products coming into the U.S., it gets very confusing as to just what is going on in trade. But one [...]

Byline: Keith Crain At the Paris auto show last week, everyone was thinking electric. At least all the manufacturers and politicians. Most of the high-end brands were busy displaying battery [...]

Byline: KEITH CRAIN Winter is just around the corner, and it is only a matter of time until we see sleet, rain and snow. It is obviously time to put [...]

Byline: Keith Crain Cadillac made a change at the top this year, selecting Steve Carlisle as president. Make no mistake, he has a very tough road ahead of him. But [...]

Byline: Keith Crain There was a time not long ago when carmakers wanted dealerships to assign all the overhead of the business to the service department so that whatever they [...]

Byline: Keith Crain I heard from friends in California that they actually passed legislation to benefit dealers. I had to question the fact until I read the story in Automotive [...]

Byline: KEITH CRAIN Sure we have been rooting for the Tigers, win or lose. Unfortunately, it has been mostly lose lately as we are told they are in the rebuilding [...]

Byline: Keith Crain With all the hoopla about autonomous and electric vehicles, it figures that interest would be waning in cars with steering wheels and internal combustion engines. But if [...]

Byline: KEITH CRAIN A little over 20 years ago, there was a movement to create an event that recalled the classic days of cruising Woodward. With little fanfare, it happened, [...]

Byline: KEITH CRAIN If we want to see some extraordinary economic activity overnight, with little or any extra effort, then I think we should all hope for a miracle. Now [...]

Byline: Keith Crain I don't know anyone who has a good idea what this automotive economy is going to do in the next couple of years. Every economist I talk [...]

Byline: KEITH CRAIN Anyone who spends time in Detroit has to marvel at the amount of construction going on in our city. It is nothing short of spectacular. But at [...]

Byline: KEITH CRAIN I was driving back to my office the other day and was overwhelmed by all the construction going on in our city. To call it a boom [...]

Byline: Keith Crain For some reason, vehicle manufacturers remain convinced that creating a handsome new dealership is going to result in more vehicle sales, ignoring the fact that what the [...]