Which car manufacturers will go under?

[Gooblah]

GM: Will eventually spin off/experience death of Hummer, Saab, GMC, Chevy
Ford: Meh...already spun off a few; in a much better position than GM
Chrysler: It's dead.

Sadly, I live near Detroit, so once Chrysler goes under and GM goes crazy with shutdowns, my town might go under...right now it's actually growing though, so we may have a chance!

 

[Irish Caesar]

What's GM without Chevrolet?

 

[Cutlass]

GM will keep Chevy. There's no other way. Buick and Cadillac should be fine. The GMC serves no purpose. The last article I saw said they planned on trying to sell off Hummer and Saturn. Saturn was a stupid move from day one. Not that the Saturns are bad, and I don't know what money they make, but having created the division, it was the red headed step child ever since. They never wanted it, and they never gave it what it really needed to succeed. Pontiac is popular, but less district from the other divisions, and therefor easier to lose.

 

[Perfection]

All of them. So, make sure your ecovillage has a supply of draft animals before peak oil hits.

 

[really]

GM rebranded Daewoo outside Korea (and Vietnam) as Chevrolet. I guess if they were trying to prune their brands this is one they would keep.

I can see Land Rover / Jaguar needing a bailout as well as Volvo, Saab and Opel. The only interesting Opel I can think of is the Kadett named Oliver in Topgear.

I'm sure the French government will order a million Renaults, Peugeots and Citroens to keep them afloat.

Fiat has some decent small cars at the minute so should do ok.

Personally I am thinking of buying a car soon (not that I need one but sure why not) It will probably be a Ford Focus or VW Golf that is a few years old.

 

[taper]

Fiat's in talks with Chrysler to buy about 30% of it. I guess Fiat mostly wants access to the American dealerships to start selling its cars here again, and when gas goes back up they might have a pretty good market for it. Other than that Chrysler's toast. The latest models from Jeep are crap, the minivans are decent, but no better than the competition, and everything else is style over substance. I really do like Dodge's styling, but the vehicle itself is terrible. Cerberus hasn't spent anything on R&D, so they have nothing new in the pipeline. I wouldn't be surprised if the name rights to Jeep are worth more than the rest of the company right now.

Ford has been doing what it needs to. They finally have a good CEO, and are breaking down the "silos" that kept the great Ford Europe models out of the US. They're the only one of the Big 3 that hasn't asked for gov't money yet either. The new Taurus is easily as good or better than the Japanese models, it's just going to take awhile for Ford's reputation to get rebuilt after many years of junk.

GM has all sorts of troubles, but nothing they can't get through as long as they're willing to make the tough and unpopular decisions. UAW will make or break the whole company. It's kinda sad about Saturn, they finally have some good models, but no one looks at them because Saturn has never made anything good before, and the division will probably get axed before they get noticed.

 

[Archbob]

GM, Ford, and Chrysler will all eventually be pwned by Japanese competition and the union.

It will be not a happy day in detroit.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

All car manufacturers in the world will go under...eventually. I don't care to conjecture as to the finer details of what will do down when.

 

[EnglishEdward]

Fiat's in talks with Chrysler to buy about 30% of it. I guess Fiat mostly wants access to the American dealerships to start selling its cars here again, and when gas goes back up they might have a pretty good market for it.

I agree. Fiat has a good range of small light fuel efficient vehicles.
They are very popular in the UK with private purchasers particularly in
cities and as second cars. If I was not long spined, I'd have bought one.

All car manufacturers in the world will go under...eventually. I don't care to conjecture as to the finer details of what will do down when.

They certainly will if they see themselves as mass car makers first;
and basing themselves around the standard specification:

4 Wheels
4/5 Occupants + Luggage
90 MPH + to speed.
70 MPH cruising speed
180 Miles before refuel/recharge
Stylists Dictating Shape
Adding weight (air bags, side bars) to survive collisions.

They need to diversify their thinking into seeing their business as
providing a number of specialised vehicle outputs varying from small
vans, one to two person city cars, powered tricycles, short coaches.

 

[GoodGame]

GM, Ford, and Chrysler will all eventually be pwned by Japanese competition and the union.

It will be not a happy day in detroit.

I don't think that's a given. Ford at least sees what is wrong and tries to adapt.

 

[LucyDuke]

All of them.

What Perf said. Or did you have a restricted timeframe in mind?

 

[Elear]

I'm upset that there's a decent chance GM will have to cut Saturn. Despite their tainted reputation from their not-so-glorious 1990's, they really revitalized the brand in the 2000's and their customer service is OUTSTANDING, in my experience

 

[Kozmos]

I will shed a tear if Saab goes under...

 

[mangxema]

I'm upset that there's a decent chance GM will have to cut Saturn. Despite their tainted reputation from their not-so-glorious 1990's, they really revitalized the brand in the 2000's and their customer service is OUTSTANDING, in my experience

My roommate said the same thing about Saturn.

 

[Zelig]

In theory, I like Saturn's no-haggle policy on pricing.

In practice, it's probably not good for me, since I'm better at negotiating price than the average person.

 

[Elear]

My roommate said the same thing about Saturn.

Saturn was also a industry-leader on incorporating features like OnStar as well as other recent safety features such as better air bags.

In theory, I like Saturn's no-haggle policy on pricing.

In practice, it's probably not good for me, since I'm better at negotiating price than the average person.

While on one hand, you're right, I have childhood nightmares of my parents haggling in car dealerships for upwards of 6 hours.

 

[Cutlass]

I'm upset that there's a decent chance GM will have to cut Saturn. Despite their tainted reputation from their not-so-glorious 1990's, they really revitalized the brand in the 2000's and their customer service is OUTSTANDING, in my experience

Unfortunately, the leadership of GM has never liked Saturn. I don't really know why, but ever since it was formed they acted like they wished it went away.

 

[TheLastOne36]

Which ones do think will go bankrupt, be reconstructed, etc and seize existing as a car company like today?

Saab and Opel won't make it, I'm not sure about some others under GM, but I'm guessing that the prognosis for GM as a whole is pretty bad.
How are Chrysler and Ford doing and which companies under them will be the first to be reconstructed? I think the risk of seeing Volvo being cut lose, still is pretty small.
I know several companies are having deficits, but are the companies in Japan and Europe in such a bad shape?

Have your own nations gone in with economical support for your car companies? GM want it to happen for Saab, but as for now, our government won't budge, which I support, for now.
France on the other hand, does what seems most beneficial for them, as usual.

Interestingly, in Poland the opposite is happening, The polish govornment is interested in starting it's own auto-industry. However i think it would just be another name under neath Volkswagon or something. We did have a car industry pre-wwII, and i'm suprised it didn't continue post wwII and even more surprised that no new company came. Polish Car industry is well overdue imo.

 

[Cutlass]

Interestingly, in Poland the opposite is happening, The polish govornment is interested in starting it's own auto-industry. However i think it would just be another name under neath Volkswagon or something. We did have a car industry pre-wwII, and i'm suprised it didn't continue post wwII and even more surprised that no new company came. Polish Car industry is well overdue imo.

Every country wants an auto industry. But we pretty much have all the auto making capacity we're ever going to need now.

 

[Marla_Singer]

I'm sure the French government will order a million Renaults, Peugeots and Citroens to keep them afloat.

That's impossible. This is forbidden by European law.

When any public authority launches a market above something like 100,000 €, then the market is necessarily open to the whole EU with tight criterias to follow in order to pick the winner. As such, if the French government wants to buy cars in order to support the automotive industry, then they can easily end up buying Skodas.


Anyway, I don't say protectionism is necessarily always a bad idea, but if it's done, it should be done at the European level. Our government should realize for once that we have a common market. Each EU country's growth is determined mainly by the overall EU growth. I just hope that in all those efforts made to support the economy, we won't start to see EU countries behaving against other EU countries.