RE: 10 High Octane Ways To Rev Up The Car Business -- I think you missed an obvious solution, which is to get rid of CAR DEALERS. When the franchise system was set up, cars were cantankerous, problematic and needed frequent repair. A reliable network of factory trained dealers was in the consumer's interest, just to keep them running. Today's cars have 100K mile tune-up intervals and require almost no repair (outside of the occasional warranty/recall item). Just look at the JD Power Reliability Index -- the worst brand (Suzuki) required just a bit more than 2 repairs per vehicle over extended use. Similar to the health care industry, where shareholders stand between the provider and the patient, car dealers do nothing except take value OUT of the equation. I'm also sure that they've generated more than their fair share of consumer complaints. So allow the factories to sell the cars directly to the public at the lowest possible cost, and let the car dealers do what they're best suited for: selling used cars. Yes, we would be putting another couple hundred thousand people out of work, but most of them could easily get jobs at the new factory stores that sell vehicles at fair, un-marked-up prices and offer factory-backed repair work. This solution is not as green as many of those already published, but it is far more pragmatic. It would eliminate about half of all the incentive dollars that drain profit from the manufacturers (those paid directly to dealers), and add between 10-20% more value to the end product. Of course, the car dealers (represented by their well-funded lobbying groups NADA and AAIDA) will scream "socialism," but with their net worth (just look at the Forbes 1000 -- after Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, automotive dealers comprise about half of the list) I'm sure they'll survive.