Congress wants to see a plan

(NEWSCHANNEL 3) - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the auto industry needs to show Congress a plan before they get any bailout money.

"Until they show us the plan," Pelosi said, "we can not show them the money."

So what does the big three need to do to convince Congress to 'show them the money?'

Newschannel 3 went out to get suggestions from an expert and local dealers.

The big three represent a lot of brands and even more cars, GM alone has eight different brands, and experts say less is more.

It's not just GM that has to trim the fat, Daniel Schied, CEO of Harold Zeigler Ford, sees the writing on the wall.

"There's not enough room in the industry going forward for companies to have all the cars that are being produced today," Schied said, "so you're going to see the domestics look something different than they are today."

Industry experts, however, say that cutting cars from the line up isn't going to be enough, some other major cuts are needed.

"Retiree health-care, white and blue collar, that is clearly no longer sustainable," Schied said.

But those two cuts alone, would cause big problems with the United Auto Workers and destroy franchise agreements with dealerships, forcing further change at the local level, change that the financial crisis has already set in motion.

"There's a graph out there that says new car sales are down," Schied said, "there's another graph out there that says the average age of cars is up."

That means dealerships may focus more on servicing cars, and selling used rather than an emphasis on selling new.

"The average number of used cars sold in the United States is around 40 to 42 million a year, that number remains fairly constant even in todays economy," said Schied.

But experts say the big three must, and have already begun to, look further down the road.

"We can see their future in things like the Chevrolet Volt," said Schied, "we can see a very competitive product in the Cadillac CTS, we can see a great product in the Chevy Traverse, the new crossover SUV."

The Lincolm MKX is one of the cars making Ford viable in the market again, the challenge for each of the big three is cutting those models that are not.

Congress wants to meet with the big three again on December 2^nd, they have until then to put a plan together if they want a bailout.

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We want to hear from you. If you were one of the CEOs of the big three, how would you turn things around? Leave your comments below and we'll feature some of them on-air at Newschannel 3.