I mean, look. If Fiat and Chrysler wanna combine their crumby companies into a bigger, yet still crumby company, then get another equally crumby company in on the action, I don't know how I'm supposed to feel. What sinks faster? Three sinking ships on their lonesome or three sinking ships lashed together? It's kind of surprising FCA has lasted this long and at this rate, I'm starting to think they might not go under, but if they do and drag Peugeot with them, well that's a lot of jobs and that's pretty worrying. Subaru has stated repeatedly in the past few years they wanna stay small and lean because it's easier for them to operate. As much as I regret why it happened and how it happened, Ford and GM wouldn't still be around without their attempts to streamline things but it sucks so bad how many jobs have been lost in the process. Toyota and Honda have both been able to whether a lot of storms through product and asset diversity without going crazy out of their area of expertise like companies like General Electric. At thus point, I'm rambling but I think you get what I'm trying to say. I rarely feel good about mergers and acquisitions, even when they make good business sense. I think smaller, more agile companies, in a diverse and competitive market is the safest way to go, economically speaking. This partnership though? Feels dumb and risky on so many levels.
The classic business example is the Studebaker-Packard Corporation, whereby two companies that couldn't fucking cut it compared to Ford, GM and Chrysler that used to be four companies that couldn't fucking cut it compared to Ford, GM and Chrysler merged into one company that couldn't fucking cut it compared to Ford, GM and Chrysler. Subaru is Fuji Heavy Industries, formerly the Nakajima Aircraft Company, one of the bigger Zaibatsus of Imperial Japan. "Small and lean" Subaru is kind of like Momcorp on Futurama. Chrysler, meanwhile, is the company that Daimler bought, lost $28b in 9 years and pushed into the ocean to watch it drown from the lifeboat. Fiat took one look at that and said "my kind of loser!" and here we are. Meanwhile, Renault and Nissan have been playing hardcore footsie but they're both sucking bilgewater, too, so by this time next year the only car company left will be Tesla and it'll still be losing $5k per car every car and its stock will be worth $1400 a share because the robots don't care about cars they only give a fuck about instantaneous delta and we'll all ride bicycles and really, the world will be a better place.What sinks faster? Three sinking ships on their lonesome or three sinking ships lashed together?
Maybe three companies who know they are mostly irrelevant, but still have a $gabillion in sales, might just choose to throw out the automaker rule book and come up with something truly unique. I mean, they can't do worse than Tesla's truck, right? Case in point, the Fiat Multipla: If Fiat and Chrysler wanna combine their crumby companies into a bigger, yet still crumby company, then get another equally crumby company in on the action, I don't know how I'm supposed to feel. What sinks faster? Three sinking ships on their lonesome or three sinking ships lashed together?
That's a Pontiac, tho. They paid for their sins by being strangled by the Invisible Hand. They aren't among the players being discussed in this three cornered nightmare of Nissan/Chrysler/Fiat. Regardless, the straw poll I used to do in casual conversation was "ugliest car ever - Pontiac Aztek or Honda Element?" and after about a year I stopped because nobody ever voted for the Aztek. We remember the Aztek as the most bafflingly ugly vehicle imaginable yet things got so much ridiculously worse that we're just kinda like "yep. Bentley is making a $200k Jeep Wagoneer."