Honda is the envy of the manufacturing world for the flexibility and efficiency of their plants.

Here's a question for you: How long does it take the Japanese automaker to go from making, say, an SUV to a different model of car -- on the same line in the same assembly plant? A stunning 5 minutes, according to a Wall Street Journal report. And how much does it cost? Absolutely nothing, thanks to the use of modular robots that can be quickly adapted.

By comparison, it takes Ford a whopping 13 months and a staggering $75 million to make a similar change at one plant. That's what Detroit is up against. We taxpayers are going to be asked to keep the Big 3 Motown automakers in business in the coming months. But in the free market, people always choose to buy from the most efficient producers.

Until the Big 3 can get creative solutions like Honda, it won't matter how much money we throw at them.