I grew up in Detroit when times were tough and it wasn’t pretty. But looking at how the heads of the Big Three are responding to the crisis that faces them makes me think that there may be too many auto companies in my hometown.

While the new reorganization plans the Big Three unveiled yesterday have aspects to recommend them (for example, GM axing Saab and Saturn) the amount of prodding it took to get to this level of change makes you wonder how serious the companies are about following through.

What’s galling though, is how the car execs seem roundly out of touch with reality.

Ford’s Mulally says he’ll actually use his own product to get to the DC hearings where the automakers must show lawmakers better restructuring plans — and then others say “Me too! Me too!” But this only comes after they got heat for taking private jets to go beg for taxpayer money.

Meanwhile, GM has gone cost-saving happy. They’ve turned off voicemail for employees and have stopped putting batteries in their wall clocks. A spokeseman says “It’s all good business practices, but now it’s extreme business practices to the point where we’re not wasting anything.” Huh? (I’ll have to turn off my voicemail and tell my clients it’s the new sig-sigma.)

And GM’s president actually claims that there is no “plan B” beyond a government bailout, which strains credulity.

The auto manufacturers are desperate — but are they desperate enough to truly change?