Ford Should
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No, if all they wanted was a bunch of crappy car lines with no hope in the world of being revived they would have bought out Chrysler a long time ago and been done with it. They should buy Saturn because it actually turns a profit.
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I 100% agree!MadBrad said:
it has a consumer following already - would be a smart move.
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Now would that be something new for Ford?Onegimp said:
Actually I was kidding.
Seriously, I'd say why not, but really Ford is slimming down not fattening. They're dropping brands like a hooker's hotpants. They don't even sell Mercury in Canada. Plus it'd probably never make money.
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When has that ever stopped any of the big three from doing something?MadBrad said:
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Why..?? Ford has rightsized the dealer network, they have better quality cars with the European Fiesta and Focus models plus the Fusion. Ford is on track to make a profit well before GM or Chrysler.MadBrad said:
Given the worth of GM right now Government Motors (GM) would have to give Saturn to Ford for free plus money to cover the liabilities.
Ford is passing GM in world sales and should pass them in North America as well. About the only thing this might accomplish is to drag Ford down toward GM and Chryslers levels.
This makes no business sense at all. Ford doesn't need more dealers, nor do they need additional models, especially in the market range covered by Saturn.
The few possibilities that might make sense would be to include Saturn in the sale of Opel or to sell the saturn dealer network to an Asian car company looking to sell vehicles in North America.
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I read the entire thread including the part where you said you were joking. My response was in general to those who took the idea seriously.
...for the record my background is engineering not business, with a heavy emphasis on product development.
Profitability (or the ability to get there sooner when the market turns around) is more important than sales volume. That alone is a major differentiator between GM and Ford.
On a serious note, GM should try to sell the Saturn dealer network (which is incorporated separately from GM) to Chery (Chinese car company) or Tata motors (India.) They might actually get some cash from someone who would want to start selling cars in the US. It would be one way to offload assets and have Saturn become someone else's problem.
...for the record my background is engineering not business, with a heavy emphasis on product development.
Profitability (or the ability to get there sooner when the market turns around) is more important than sales volume. That alone is a major differentiator between GM and Ford.
On a serious note, GM should try to sell the Saturn dealer network (which is incorporated separately from GM) to Chery (Chinese car company) or Tata motors (India.) They might actually get some cash from someone who would want to start selling cars in the US. It would be one way to offload assets and have Saturn become someone else's problem.
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Not true, Microsoft made pretty much nothing on their operating system at first as they practically gave it away at cost. They flooded the market with their crap to squash competition and then jacked up the prices when there was no viable alternative. This was intentional and the plan all along. In that case, sales volume owned profitability. Just look at Microsoft today. They're a beast.JonsZX2SR said:
I think you're also missing the overall picture here. While you probably know a lot about product development, that is only one aspect of a product life cycle. Take, for example, Beta verses VHS. Beta was better but VHS kicked their arse royally because their advertising dominated them. It was pretty much entirely based off that. They had far more savvy marketing and dumped tons of money into it. So, they won despite pushing an inferior product. If that doesn't make you cringe, Toshiba developed the DVD player back in 1980... and shelved if after they patented it because they didn't want to kill their profitable VHS line. In a way, unchecked capitalism is kind of like a parasite. It's supposed to promote development but in some cases severely hinders it. Microsoft put "new" on their optical mice box in the mid to late 90s. It's 40 yo technology. Old Sun SPARCstations had them.
The key to being successful in the car industry is to make a few very versatile engines and frames and throw lots of different looking panels on them. The more desirable variety you can put out without having to develop from scratch by sharing components, the better. It will cut costs, which in this economy is worth more than growing sales... at least at the moment it is. They will have time to change the strategy as the environment changes.
You are right on one thing though, profitability is very important (especially in the long-term). Without it, you don't have viability, which was the reason why GM and Chrysler failed. Lack of adaptation was their downfall. In short, they were outcompeted.
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I'm kidding. I'm just giving you a hard time. You made a lot of good points.
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Be kind of interesting to be lost on a dark road in the bad part of town and have your GPS only responding to you in French
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I don't know why they even show those videos. It's not the car would even last long enough to get into an accident. If it doesn't outright explode upon turnover, it will definitely shake apart on the freeway.
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look, heres the real low down on the failing car companies....
They tried to make their vehicles Eco-friendly, spent way more than they should have doing it, so they raised their porices to unreasonable levels, turning the market value of their vehicles sour.
Then, to top it off, they scrapped their vehicle lines that were turning profits to introduce new vehicles that the market wasn't so ready to buy, therefore loosing customers. Dodge(Chrysler) was especially bad, getting rid of the Intrepid (don't blame them, they were catching on fire), Neon, and Stratus all within 4 years to bring back the Charger, Avenger, Challenger, in a couple of years the Demon, and others. They lost the market for those cars and didn't gain a large base for the newer vehicles. If the Police departments hadn't contracted buying Chargers, they would have fallen back in `06! Chevrolet(GM) sunk Billions for the past 10 years into the hydrogen powered car that is still yet to surface on anything other than science channels, uncompleted.
Ford, while not dropping cars regularly, were smart when they did it and left the cars they were replacing on the market for a few years before phasing it out, to make sure the customers were ready to switch over to the new vehicle. They Improved on what they had, instead of releasing a still in the testing phase of reliability onto a already unsure market. This is why people have continued to buy Ford products, and Ford still holds a strong Economic value, where Chrysler and GM are left begging our government for our hard earned money.
BTW, I am not a Economist, just stating what I saw while working at a dealership, detailing cars
If it was that obvious to someone like me, how does it look to the over-priced Government Economists? :lol: If they can't see it, then they really need to get out from behind their desks and look around them, cause they are lost.
They tried to make their vehicles Eco-friendly, spent way more than they should have doing it, so they raised their porices to unreasonable levels, turning the market value of their vehicles sour.
Then, to top it off, they scrapped their vehicle lines that were turning profits to introduce new vehicles that the market wasn't so ready to buy, therefore loosing customers. Dodge(Chrysler) was especially bad, getting rid of the Intrepid (don't blame them, they were catching on fire), Neon, and Stratus all within 4 years to bring back the Charger, Avenger, Challenger, in a couple of years the Demon, and others. They lost the market for those cars and didn't gain a large base for the newer vehicles. If the Police departments hadn't contracted buying Chargers, they would have fallen back in `06! Chevrolet(GM) sunk Billions for the past 10 years into the hydrogen powered car that is still yet to surface on anything other than science channels, uncompleted.
Ford, while not dropping cars regularly, were smart when they did it and left the cars they were replacing on the market for a few years before phasing it out, to make sure the customers were ready to switch over to the new vehicle. They Improved on what they had, instead of releasing a still in the testing phase of reliability onto a already unsure market. This is why people have continued to buy Ford products, and Ford still holds a strong Economic value, where Chrysler and GM are left begging our government for our hard earned money.
BTW, I am not a Economist, just stating what I saw while working at a dealership, detailing cars
If it was that obvious to someone like me, how does it look to the over-priced Government Economists? :lol: If they can't see it, then they really need to get out from behind their desks and look around them, cause they are lost.
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It was the bank meltdown(which was caused by unprecedented greed on Wall Street) that caused people to stop buying cars. GM and Chrysler were not poised to weather such a slump. They were caught with their pants down.
Ford wasn't better at it, just lucky. 2-3 years prior, Ford was the one in trouble. They got a huge loan using all their real estate as collateral. Now that's desparate! They bet the farm on the Edge and got lucky. It was a hit. So was the Fusion and that helped. They restructured then. They were ready for what happened in '08. They also had to scale down labour wise just like the rest.
True, GM and Chrysler have very little in viable product. I think in all of this they are still forgetting it's the product that matters.
Ford wasn't better at it, just lucky. 2-3 years prior, Ford was the one in trouble. They got a huge loan using all their real estate as collateral. Now that's desparate! They bet the farm on the Edge and got lucky. It was a hit. So was the Fusion and that helped. They restructured then. They were ready for what happened in '08. They also had to scale down labour wise just like the rest.
True, GM and Chrysler have very little in viable product. I think in all of this they are still forgetting it's the product that matters.
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they think that bringing back dead car names will bring more business, but the people have forgot about those names and were more eager to buy what they had. NTM, Chryslers failure with the Chargers catching on fire, have you seen the video of the Cop car up in flames? Epic fail!
The decay started way earlier than the bank failure, try when Enron collapsed! That was the start of it. The stock market gave alot of money out it didn't have, and the Senate patched it long enough to last 5 years, then everyone realised they didn't have as much money as the records showed. The shares in almost all stocks were over-inflated back during Enron Days, and that adversly affected the National Banks, which screwed up the Housing industry, which screwed up the Auto Industry.
But where it all boils down to is, money greedy people spending more money than they had, killed this economy!
The decay started way earlier than the bank failure, try when Enron collapsed! That was the start of it. The stock market gave alot of money out it didn't have, and the Senate patched it long enough to last 5 years, then everyone realised they didn't have as much money as the records showed. The shares in almost all stocks were over-inflated back during Enron Days, and that adversly affected the National Banks, which screwed up the Housing industry, which screwed up the Auto Industry.
But where it all boils down to is, money greedy people spending more money than they had, killed this economy!
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