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Bankrupt, or bailed out by their home government, or bought for scraps after stock crashes, you get the idea.
Make a vote, and explain why you think so.
IMO Tesla would be a bad guess, growing very rapidly with high margins, and have financial support from big spenders (including VW apparently) to value them at over 60 billion. But if stock crashes, it could happen.
I would look at ones on sketchy financial ground with sensitive demand for vehicles, or low margins. Fiat Chrysler would be a decent guess.
BMW would be a decent guess as they are smaller size with a target market being directly hit by the newcomer (Tesla) which could punish their margins.
Ford is in a general downtrend, but still hugely profitable on their trucks, but that is really their main business now, so they would be in trouble if that market were to be disrupted (ahem, Tesla pickup). If that happened it wouldn't be for 7-10 years from now though.
I'll play. You don't list all of the car makers in the world. If Renault was on the list, I'd probably vote for them but it would be race between them and FCA. Renault is world wide known for lousy cheap cars and the semi-merger with Nissan only prolonged the inevitable. FCA, they couldn't make a car right if they wanted. Their products are known for being cheap crap but I'll make the exception of the Ram line of trucks. While cheap and dated by comparison to the competition, they build a reasonably reliable truck and as of this day, I'd buy a Ram over a Ford or a GM due to the incredibly lousy and unreliable 10 speed automatic that both brands share. Make no mistake though, the Ram is still a cheapy truck with it's crappy plastic interiors. But at least the transmission isn't trying to self destruct while driving it.
Tesla. They are not making money and can't get their costs down. Musk said he was going to have a $35k car available by now. We're still waiting. The only way he was able to even get close was through tax incentives, and those are going away next year.
Overall, I don't think any of the automakers are being helped by Trump's tariff idiocy. I'm glad I bought a new Toyota truck this year, because I expect they are going to spike in price badly in the next few model years. With the combined hits of rising interest rates, increasing material & part costs and stagnant middle class wages it'll get harder and harder to sell new cars. Toyota will be fine, though, because it can sell to China.
The weakest ones will be hit hardest - I'll agree with the consensus and bet on FCA. Any automaker that does not have market share in China is going to be screwed, and Trump just gave huge gifts to Japan and internal Chinese automakers with his fights with China. Especially Japan, who's China sales jumped 12% in 2017 and look headed for another banner year. Hyundai/Kia was hit hard because of the North Korea mess last year but look like they're going to rebound strong, now with American costs rising and China making up to the Koreas, expect Hyundai to take advantage of the gap. American brands only grew 2%. VW and Volvo are also cleaning up in China.
Guess who was worst? Yup, FCA. But Ford is dropping and so are most of the GM makes.
Dealerships will be fine, because the used car market is growing, but the American makers are going to get hit.
Last edited by redguard57; 08-27-2018 at 04:04 PM..
Make no mistake though, the Ram is still a cheapy truck with it's crappy plastic interiors.
Have you looked at a 2019 Ram? The interior is absolutely class leading. I feel just the opposite, Ram and FCA are great at making polished turds. They look real nice, but aren't reliable at all.
I voted for Tesla, simply because they've yet to turn a profit. I get it, they have all kinds of backers and they can burn cash for now, but sooner or later they're going to have to show they can it together or go under.
Renault also owns/markets the Dacia and Logan.
Quite popular car around the world.
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