Who will be Tomorrow's Big Auto Maker?
Anyone who has been following news on the American economy knows GM and Chrysler are really struggling to survive. Just today autoblog posted a survey they conducted stating that 76% of Americans believe GM will fail within the next couple of years.
It's hard to say exactly what will happen when one of them actually does fail, and even harder to think back on the government assistence that has gone into propping them up all this time. Subsidies and unions may have their place in the short run but nothing is free and the cost of those two systems are manifest in what is happening today. Will money be recovered from these mega corporations in some form? Could the recent bailout funds have been spent better elsewhere? What will happen to all of that equipment and expertise?
Thankfully there is a whole new crop of car companies out there chasing the dream. Big leaders like Toyota are adapting to these changes and benefiting from their high quality reputation. Newer smaller companies like Hyundai are staking their own claim while other relatively new companies like Saturn close their doors for good. The most innovative up and comers are Tesla, Zap, and Aptera all out of California. These three companies represent the future in clean efficient transportation and each has created something new and special with their designs. Note that all three companies are focusing on electric cars.
Who will become the future Big 3 and will they reside in the US? As far as we can tell Honda, Toyota, and Tesla have a pretty good shot. Many of the cars produced by Toyota and Honda are actually made in the US these days so they could actually be considered domestic in many ways. Your guess is as good as ours but you can bet it won't be GM, Ford, or Chrysler. As a closing point, Chrysler is doing some amazing work with EV's and so is Ford, we hope they can make it work with this last ditch effort, or possibly spin off their dev teams into new companies.
It's hard to say exactly what will happen when one of them actually does fail, and even harder to think back on the government assistence that has gone into propping them up all this time. Subsidies and unions may have their place in the short run but nothing is free and the cost of those two systems are manifest in what is happening today. Will money be recovered from these mega corporations in some form? Could the recent bailout funds have been spent better elsewhere? What will happen to all of that equipment and expertise?
Thankfully there is a whole new crop of car companies out there chasing the dream. Big leaders like Toyota are adapting to these changes and benefiting from their high quality reputation. Newer smaller companies like Hyundai are staking their own claim while other relatively new companies like Saturn close their doors for good. The most innovative up and comers are Tesla, Zap, and Aptera all out of California. These three companies represent the future in clean efficient transportation and each has created something new and special with their designs. Note that all three companies are focusing on electric cars.
Who will become the future Big 3 and will they reside in the US? As far as we can tell Honda, Toyota, and Tesla have a pretty good shot. Many of the cars produced by Toyota and Honda are actually made in the US these days so they could actually be considered domestic in many ways. Your guess is as good as ours but you can bet it won't be GM, Ford, or Chrysler. As a closing point, Chrysler is doing some amazing work with EV's and so is Ford, we hope they can make it work with this last ditch effort, or possibly spin off their dev teams into new companies.
EV Resources
EV Companies
Leave a comment