(J.D. Power and Associates: Westlake Village, CA) -- These days, for many folks, the business section is becoming the first part of the newspaper that they read as the nation struggles to right its economy. And few, if any, other single businesses have made more headlines—or have had as dramatic an effect on the economy—as the automotive industry. We’ve seen two of Detroit’s Big Three struggle through the bankruptcy process. Even the world’s largest automaker, Toyota, has become buried under billions of dollars in unanticipated losses, driven by the wholesale collapse of the U.S. automotive market.

How do you make sense of the industry’s turmoil? Gary Dilts, senior vice president of global automotive operations for J.D. Power and Associates, provides an interesting perspective on the industry, as he has spent more than 30 years in the car business. Prior to joining J.D. Power in 2007, Gary was the chief sales executive at Chrysler. With bankruptcies, reorganizations, job cuts, plant closings, and cash-for-clunker deals all vying for our attention, we asked Dilts to help us put some perspective on what is happening in the auto industry, and how it can recover from its worst crisis since the Great Depression.

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