As the wheel turns

American auto manufacturers are losing their grip on the title of the world’s automotive powerhouse, costing workers thousands of jobs — including 1,100 in Baltimore.

General Motors Corp. announced on Tuesday that it would close its Baltimore minivan plant, the latest in a series of cost-cutting moves by U.S. manufacturers.

The long-expected announcement by the world’s largest auto manufacturer will cost the plant workers their jobs and will hurt the local companies that supply the facility on Broening Highway in Dundalk, an eastern Baltimore suburb.

In the past four years, the number of U.S. workers employed by GM, Ford and DaimlerChrysler dropped from 347,000 to 274,000.

“It’s been tough times for us,” said Larry Simmons, president of the United Auto Workers Local 7 in Detroit. “The foreign companies are eating the American manufacturers’ lunch.”

Last year, the unthinkable happened: Toyota Motor Co. topped Chrysler in monthly car sales for August.

For the first time since automobiles became a staple of American life nearly a century ago, the Big Three were General Motors, Ford and Toyota. Chrysler, now part of DaimlerChrysler, was fourth.

As the market share of American-made cars declines and Japan’s slice increases, the automobile industry is worried that it might be a death spiral, instead of a temporary dip.

The manufacturers are using outsourcing, advanced technology, a leaner work force and financing ventures to stay profitable.

General Motors earned a $440 million profit in the third quarter, but it came from its car- and home-loan business. Its automotive operations lost $22 million in the United States and $130 million worldwide.

“We have to find ways to run the business more efficiently,” GM Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Rick Wagoner said.

The Japanese auto companies “get more bang for the buck, so to speak, with every dollar they make,” said Treffen White, an automobile industry analyst for R.L. Polk & Co., an industry data-services company. The American manufacturers “are still trying to play catch-up.”

In essence, what’s true for General Motors is true for the U.S. manufacturing industry.

“It’s a pretty basic formula,” said GM spokesman Chris Preuss. “Build products that people have got to have and provide them at a price point that is appealing to them.”

The problem for U.S. manufacturers is that the Japanese are using the same formula.

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