Check out the listings on J.D. Power and Associates' Web site for the 10 most fuel-efficient cars (www.jdpower.com/autos). You'll find Volkswagen, Toyota, Honda, Kia and Scion — but no American auto manufacturer.

Therein lies the dilemma confronting Ford, which has announced that 30,000-plus workers will lose their jobs as the company continues to hemorrhage money. Corporate shortsightedness, reinforced by a feckless government energy policy, has helped create the crisis facing U.S. automakers.

Events since Sept. 11, 2001, have made evident what should have been clear since the first Arab oil embargo more than 30 years ago: America should not depend on oil imported from unstable or unfriendly nations. Petro-dollars are fueling the nuclear ambitions of Iran, the oversize ego of Venezuela's president, Wahhabi fundamentalism in Saudi Arabia and unrest in Nigeria. Political instability and growing demand will create hyper-reactive oil prices.

Foreign automakers invested in hybrid engines and small, fuel-efficient cars, while GM and especially Ford continued to push super-size cars and gas-gulping SUVs — only to act surprised when brand loyalty vanished as gas prices soared. Now, stockholders and workers will pay deeply for the disconnect between what customers want and what Ford can turn out on the assembly line.

The massive worker buyout offers that Ford announced, combined with already announced cutbacks, will slice 30 percent of its assembly-line workers and close 16 American plants. Ford will lose billions of dollars this year.

Gasoline prices aren't solely to blame for Ford's problems. Competitors like Toyota have made inroads into the truck market, where Ford's F-150 truck has dominated. Like GM, Ford also is saddled with huge retiree and worker health care costs, and it depended on trucks and SUVs, with the biggest per-vehicle profits, to cover them.

Throughout the '80s and '90s, Detroit fought efforts to raise fuel-efficiency standards that would have forced car makers to hasten the development of fuel cells, biofuels and other new technologies. Now-ousted CEO Bill Ford Jr. committed to make Ford the green carmaker, but didn't deliver. The Big Three have sued to stop California from demanding that cars also reduce carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to global warming.

Detroit found a friend in President Bush, who believes cheap oil is a birthright and who made exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge a priority. Asked a few years ago whether the nation needs to change its lifestyle to address the energy problem, press secretary Ari Fleischer answered: "That's a big no. The president believes that it's an American way of life, and that it should be the goal of policy-makers to protect the American way of life."

But Bush can't protect Americans from the world's rising temperatures and from gyrations in the price of gas caused by hurricanes, sabotage and the ravings of Iranian mullahs. Drivers have finally begun to understand this and change their driving and buying habits. As a result, a substantially weakened Ford and GM are scrambling to recover the market share and the technological edge they should never have surrendered.