Possible hot take

"Supreme Chancellor and Glorious Leader SaveTheIntegras" (jegoingout) 04/25/2018 at 17:26 • Filed to: None

10

23

The moment the economy shits the bed and/or gas prices spike and companies like Ford and FCA start begging for government money, let them fail. They didn’t learn a dam thing obviously

For Sweden > Supreme Chancellor and Glorious Leader SaveTheIntegras 04/25/2018 at 17:28

1

They won’t fail. They will just import the cars.

gettingoldercarguy > Supreme Chancellor and Glorious Leader SaveTheIntegras 04/25/2018 at 17:28

0

Trucks, trucks, SUVs and trucks!

lone_liberal > Supreme Chancellor and Glorious Leader SaveTheIntegras 04/25/2018 at 17:33

4

I take it you don’t know one of the tens of thousands of people who would be thrown out of work who don’t make corporate policy and don’t care about the hit the economy would take? Also, while I think it would be smarter to keep one or two car models to have a better balanced product portfolio CUVs don’t get mileage that much worse than the cars they are based on. We’re not talking Expeditions here.

For Sweden > lone_liberal 04/25/2018 at 17:35

7

Idea: nationalize Ford, employ everyone, and build rebadged Fiats.

Supreme Chancellor and Glorious Leader SaveTheIntegras > lone_liberal 04/25/2018 at 17:41

2

Having met people and know people who have lost their jobs due to shitty corportate policy, it sucks don’t get me wrong...but we’d all be suffering in a shit economy anyway.

There’s zero reason tax payers should pay for another huge corporate diaster

lone_liberal > Supreme Chancellor and Glorious Leader SaveTheIntegras 04/25/2018 at 17:45

3

My disagreement is more with the “that’ll teach ‘em” tone since the people who set the policy won’t be harmed in the least.

PS9 > Supreme Chancellor and Glorious Leader SaveTheIntegras 04/25/2018 at 17:56

3

It’s not their fault american consumers don’t want small cars and sedans. What are they supposed to do? Build unprofitable cars people don’t want to buy? The Cruze, Dart and Focus-Fiesta twins got built. They tried. If customers are turning away from small cars, automakers cannot just force them to reconsider.

Bman76 (hates WS6 hoods, is on his phone and has 4 burners now) > Supreme Chancellor and Glorious Leader SaveTheIntegras 04/25/2018 at 17:57

3

I agree to some extent, but at the same time the market wants what the market wants. Also, I’m no engineer but I’d imagine packaging a massive battery for PHEVs into a crossover is easier than the sedan it’s based on.

CTSenVy > For Sweden 04/25/2018 at 18:01

1

Trumps New Deal, a job for everybody and two Fiat Pandas in every garage.

Chariotoflove > Supreme Chancellor and Glorious Leader SaveTheIntegras 04/25/2018 at 18:03

4

I think there is something wrong with a business that can sell a quarter million of something and not make a profit off of it.

I also think there is something wrong with chasing only the highest profit items in the portfolio and ditching the others so as to maximize immediate profits at the expense of market diversity.

mazda616 > Supreme Chancellor and Glorious Leader SaveTheIntegras 04/25/2018 at 18:06

2

Crossovers are where it’s at according to market trends and they don’t carry the MPG penalty that BOF trucks and SUVs of the ‘90s did. We have a ‘13 CX-5 and it gets roughly the same gas mileage as its platform mates (the 3 and 6).

I’m still sad to see cars go, though.

bhtooefr > lone_liberal 04/25/2018 at 18:12

0

As I said in another story about this, there’ll be plenty of expansion by Tesla, as well as Chinese automakers trying to expand operations into America, where they would love access to ex-Ford workers and IP.

jimz > Supreme Chancellor and Glorious Leader SaveTheIntegras 04/25/2018 at 18:16

2

When the economy shits the bed, new vehicle sales are one of if not the first thing to nosedive. I’m curious why you seem to think no-profit compact cars would be a hedge against that. ‘Cos when things hit the skids, people don’t think “oh, I’ll get a Focus instead of an Edge.” They think “well, I guess we’re not buying a new car this year.”

lone_liberal > bhtooefr 04/25/2018 at 18:19

1

Only they won’t. They might hire a few senior engineers but they’ll go to places like Alabama for actual production just like all of the other transplants, if they even produce cars here. I also doubt that their combined size will ever come close to the 80,000+ employees that Ford has, and the odds of Tesla ever getting to that size are astronomical. I’d like to see an actual profit from them before we start talking about them being the size of Ford.

For Sweden > CTSenVy 04/25/2018 at 18:29

2

Now I see why Kanye likes him.

bhtooefr > lone_liberal 04/25/2018 at 18:42

1

Not just them, though, but also the Chinese, remember.

I could see BYD, Geely, GAC, et. al. ending up dominating domestic auto production, frankly.

Dusty Ventures > lone_liberal 04/25/2018 at 19:04

2

“Also, while I think it would be smarter to keep one or two car models to have a better balanced product portfolio CUVs don’t get mileage that much worse than the cars they are based on.”

City mileage isn’t far off, but that extra drag kills their highway economy. Case in point, check out the Impreza vs the Crosstrek. Same engine, same body with the exception of bumpers/cladding. Crosstrek is only 1 mpg worse in the city, but 5 worse on the highway, a 13% drop.

Eric @ opposite-lock.com > Chariotoflove 04/25/2018 at 19:32

3

This is what MBAs do best. This is also why I hate MBAs. They are only interested in quarterly and end-of-year numbers, that’s it. If it requires a longer time horizon, it doesn’t exist in their world. This dooms any project you can’t complete in this time... This lack of long term thinking kills companies in the long run.

Chariotoflove > Eric @ opposite-lock.com 04/25/2018 at 19:41

2

I think so. Business in this country runs on quarterly reports. Stock prices fluctuate wildly on those reports, and board members care deeply about those prices. It doesn’t seem to me that complicated manufactured goods like cars should be beholden to such a short cycle, but here we are.

Eric @ opposite-lock.com > Chariotoflove 04/25/2018 at 19:46

1

Software has a similar problem, which is why we have “agile” garbage and horribly hacked up codebases. If you can’t show something before the end of the year, it’ll get quietly chopped. Then if your team survives that, you start hacking new functionality into it until it’s a nasty mess.

My last company was going to give up on my project if they didn’t get something useful within 6 months, so this was exactly how it went. Once it was critical for operation, they couldn’t get rid of it, but they also didn’t want to invest in the people to build it to the full potential, which frustrated me to the point I had to look for something else...

Rico > bhtooefr 04/25/2018 at 22:18

0

The ultimate F U from them to us.

bhtooefr > jimz 04/26/2018 at 05:23

0

When it hits the skids because gas prices shoot up, it becomes “I’m going to dump my Edge and get a Fiesta”.

pip bip - choose Corrour > Supreme Chancellor and Glorious Leader SaveTheIntegras 04/26/2018 at 05:32

0

truth.