Poling Says Japanese Make Better Cars: “If...

Poling Says Japanese Make Better Cars: “If you look at the Japanese, I think we’re equal to some and not as good as the best,” Ford Motor Co. Chairman Harold A. Poling said in a story published Sunday in the Detroit News. “Our objective is to get there.” Poling said operational costs, not technology, put the Big Three auto makers at a disadvantage. “Can we get plants in the United States to produce vehicles as inexpensively as the Japanese do? You bet,” he said. “But that requires shutting down your plants and starting from scratch. We can’t do that. We have a work force, we have retirees, we’re committed to pensions and we’re committed to health care. And that gives us a serious non-competitive disadvantage going in. We have to deal with that somehow.”