My major issue with the the American car industry is that they don't produce any cars I would want to buy. Wether I'm looking at comfort, economy, quality, environmental, performance, aesthetics, handling etc. there is not an American car I would want to buy.
If I want comfort I ould buy BMW or a Mercedes, if I want economy I would buy a VW or a Nissan, if I want quality I will buy Toyota or Honda, if I want an eco friendly car I will buy a Toyota Prius (even though they are one of the ugliest cars I have ever seen), for performance I would buy a Nissan, aestethics is amtter of personal taste but I would go for an Alfa Romeo, for handling Porsche. There are a multitude of cars availble for me to buy for a plethora of reasons and the American automakers dont seem to do any of them particularly well.
American cars, in the uk, have the reputation of being unreliable, fuel guzzling monstrosities that have all the cornering abilities of an elephant. Currently I drive a Honda and my girlfriend drives a Toyota. My next car will be a Honda S2000 or a Nissan 350Z.
Witht the exception of Ford it's also quite rare to see American cars in the UK and I don't imagine it is a particularly different across the rest of europe.
Even if the American auto giants do get quality sorted they still have to design and build a car that appeals outside of the Americas.