Divorse of Equals
 | Edward Lapham is the executive editor of Automotive News. He writes commentaries for Automotive News online every business day. His commentaries also can be found here. |
Edward Lapham | Automotive News
May 10, 2007 - 11:37 am
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Every market has its ups and downs, and so does every automaker, although the downs never seem to be as deep or as long for some companies.
For some time, there has been bad stuff coming around for the Detroit 3 -- especially in North America, where sales have been sluggish and where from time to time they've used incentives to sell cars and trucks.
But General Motors, Ford and Chrysler aren't the only automakers having problems in their home markets.
The Mercedes-Benz car group -- which seems eager to jettison the struggling Chrysler group -- is itself battling a dramatic sales decline in Germany. Some of it is due to sluggishness. Some of it may be residual damage from the recent days of lousy quality. Some of it is due to marketing blunders.
Our German-language sister publication, Automobilwoche, reports that Mercedes has told its dealers to work harder at selling dealer demos, to push vehicles already in inventory and to take advantage of the factory's marketing promotions.
Dealers say the problem is that Mercedes has screwed up the market for its cars by buying too much business with rebates.
That sounds a lot like the issues facing Chrysler in the United States.
It has been three months since DaimlerChrysler CEO Dieter Zetsche declared that Chrysler is for sale, and a deal seems imminent. But if a deal isn't consummated soon, it may be time for plan B.
Given the problems facing Mercedes in Germany, wouldn't it make sense for Chrysler to dump Mercedes?
In a marriage, either partner can file for divorce. So why not, in what the prenuptial agreement billed as a merger of equals?
After all, in the global car biz, was umhergeht, kommt herum.
What goes around, comes around.
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