Word: volkswagen
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Rising Costs. Aside from inconvenience and damage to production, the strikes will have important consequences for the trading relationship between the U.S. and Europe. Reason: labor costs are rising more sharply in most of Europe than in America. At Volkswagen, wages rose 6% in 1969, 15% in 1970 and another 16% this year. At Daimler-Benz, the ratio of labor costs to total sales has climbed from 21% to 26% in the past decade. Historically, in European industry's competition for world markets, its lower wages have counteracted the U.S.'s higher productivity, which is a result...
...scandal began in April when Lynn Pelletier, a U.S. Customs official acting on a hunch, searched a Volkswagen camper-bus shipped to Port Elizabeth, N.J., from Le Havre. She found 96 pounds of pure heroin secreted behind the fire wall of the bus. The bus's owner, Roger de Louette, had acted slightly nervous when filling out customs forms; he was arrested as he waited on the pier. De Louette claimed that he had been a spy with the SDECE. After being fired, he needed money badly, and accepted an offer to earn $60,000 for shipping the heroin...
First Victims. The figures are somewhat misleading because they include the products of "real" foreign competitors like Volkswagen and Sony as well as those of U.S.-owned subsidiaries. Moreover, labor leaders do not dwell on the fact that export-related jobs in the U.S. increased by 200,000 during the same period. The trouble with most of labor's remedies is that they would penalize all foreign competitors and thus invite widespread retaliation against U.S. exporters. The employees of these export firms could well be the first victims of any trade...
Still, the time of the turbines has already begun. General Motors and Volkswagen have both asked Williams to develop experimental turbine engines for their cars. Chrysler, which tested and gave up on a turbine engine in the mid-1960s, will send an improved version to the EPA for testing next month. Says John Brogan, chief of the EPA's division of advanced automotive power systems: "The turbine is the most realistic alternative to the internal combustion engine." Some Chrysler engineers are so enthusiastic that they say there is not even a close second...
...different approach to automotive safety, Volkswagen last week showed off what it calls an "Experimental Safety Vehicle." Longer and sleeker than the standard Beetle, the ESV's key feature is three-ply steel body construction. The outer ply is buttressed with extremely strong front and rear bumpers plus structural beams along the sides. The next ply is an impact-absorbing crumple zone; then a tough inner shell shields the passenger compartment. As a last line of defense, VW is also experimenting with a net that drops from the ceiling on impact to keep passengers from pitching against the dashboard...