ABSTRACT
For over 20 years, the American auto industry has had to manage intense foreign competition in its core markets. During the 1990s, highly protable truck and SUV sales bu§ered the Big ree from the e§ects of foreign competition. By the early 2000s, Toyota and others had begun to inltrate this market as well, leaving American automakers with little room for error. A¨er world nancial markets crashed in 2008, drying up consumer and business credit, the domestic auto industry in the United States was in trouble. e heads of the three major auto companies-GM, Ford, and Chrysler-were criticized for traveling to Washington, DC, in private jets while their companies teetered on the edge of bankruptcy. Ultimately, it took a massive bailout to save GM, and Chrysler was sold to Fiat.
