Granted, I live in Houston, but I do know enough people that I could produce a stack of business cards for any other major industry. In fact, I know more people who build satellites, stealth fighters, or submarines than consumer vehicles.
What is the state of automotive R&D in this country anyway... has the industry been turned over to the marketing department wholesale or am I just in the wrong spot?
It sounds wonderful and high-level. Faced with hordes of competitors from overseas, people in developed economies tell themselves that they excel at higher order skills, like management and leadership, and big picture thinking. This is especially popular with managers. So things like "vison", "systems thinking" and "the big picture" become your priority, not the nuts and bolts.
But in reality, you become like Dell, rather than Intel. In a vertically integrated market; system builders are the kings, and parts makers are small players trying to get their foot in the door. In a horizontally integrated market; system builders compete on margins, while parts builders compete on quality. And competing on margins is a good way to make peanuts.
That was once true.
Since the bailouts, the company has shifted it's focus back to quality. Many more components and parts are developed and manufactured in-house. See battery systems. With this comes an increase in part/component testing and validation, as well as complete control of quality and behavior of the component. IMO, this is the biggest factor in our quality improvements that have saved us boatloads in warranty costs.
The majority of R&D is done in SE Michigan, with additional small labs located around the world. We also do vehicle testing and controls development globally to validate our assumptions wrt climate/elevation/terrain changes. It's true that you won't meet many automotive engineers that live outside of Michigan.