Road kill

The American car industry is in big trouble. After a few days here, I know why. Their cars are rubbish. Actually I knew that before I came to Houston: it's hardly a secret.

The strange thing is, Americans still live to drive. Cars remain a staple of TV advertising. This week I twice caught an ad for the Chevy Equinox, 32mpg on the highway. This was billed in green capitals as "The most fuel-efficient crossover on the road". In terms of being damned with faint praise it's right up there with "Slightly less ugly than the Ssangyong Rodius".

I thought fuel economy information might be mandatory in US adverts, but Range Rover studiously ignore it, preferring to venture into anorak territory with "best-in-class residual values". Chevrolet, undeterred, boasts that the Silverado truck (pickup) does 21mpg. There are thousands of trucks in Houston, even though the roads are smooth and no one needs to carry anything in the back, other than spare jerrycans, presumably.

The continuing popularity of American cars in America has shielded the US motor industry from an unpalatable truth: they are behind the times. Nowhere else in the world would 21mpg, or even 32mpg, be considered a selling point. Ford and GM have made some great cars for the global market; Chrysler made some really bad ones. But in the US market they took all the best features of their rivals' vehicles, ignored them and kept doing what they'd been doing for decades, churning out gas-guzzlers the size of Minnesota. Finally, as economic restrictions and high gasoline prices bite, Americans are realising that foreign cars are often more efficient, better designed, more reliable, better built, heck, even better looking. Japanese and European cars are gaining a foothold in the States even as American cars become more disdained and less bought in other parts of the world. It sounds just like the UK motor industry in the 70s.

I don't underestimate the human impact on cities like Detroit when huge companies run into trouble. But there's some comfort to be had from knowing it's happening because a proud nation is recognising it doesn't know best and needs to change its ways. The day that the Silverado, the Equinox and Ford's humungous F-Series become pariahs on the roads of the US, will be a sunny one for humanity.