Everyone is looking for ways to save money. One of the ways that you can save money is by taking better care of your automobile. After purchasing a home, buying a car is the second most expensive purchase that you will ever make. Let’s take a look at a few ways that you can save some cash during the winter driving season. The following is a guest post from Money Super Market.
Saving the US Auto Industry
December 5, 2008 By Leave a Comment
Congress is meeting with all three US auto makers to try and help them avoid bankruptcy. This is a necessary step because the economy cannot handle the bankruptcy of all 3 domestic auto companies at this point in time. While there are some issues that affect all three companies such as unfavorable trade agreements and high labor costs that make it difficult to be competitive with foreign competitors. I think Congress is making a mistake though by treating all three as a collective group. These are individual corporations that each face their own unique set of problems. Below is my take on the problems for each company and how we start to fix them.
General Motors
GM just makes too many brands that are not popular. GM needs to drop unprofitable brands such as Pontiac, Buick, Saab and Saturn. Too many GM brands are seen as being an old person’s car. Honda, Toyota and Nissan build sleeker better looking cars. The stronger selling brand names like Cadillac, Chevrolet and GMC should be their core focus. Chevrolet and GMC also need differentation in design. Is there that big a difference between a GMC Yukon and a Chevy Tahoe? The Hummer brand does have value and should be sold off if possible.
Ford
Ford is in the best position of the 3 auto makers. Ford has already redesigned it plants and started producing better looking more fuel efficient cars. They have reduced their number of brand names by selling Jaguar and Land Rover this year. Ford should retain its interest in Lincoln, Volvo and Mazda while selling off its Mercury brand. Mercury sells less than 200,000 models per year and is similar to other Ford products.
Chrysler
Most of the offerings from Chrysler do very little to inspire excitement. There is not much value in the Chrysler, Jeep or Dodge names. Chrysler needs to merge with another auto company. The government should not extend any financial help to Chrysler. Chrysler is 80% percent owned by Cerebus and 20% by Daimler. Cerebus Capital Management is a private equity firm owned by some of the wealthiest men in the world. They seem to just be seeking financing to keep them afloat long enough to sell Chrysler and redeem their investment. Daimler has already valued its almost 2 billion dollar investment in Chrysler as worthless.
