For quite some time, the focus of Detroit’s troubled present and future has been on Ford and GM – and rightfully so. They’re the 2 largest domestic automakers, and besides – Chrysler was taken over by merged with Daimler-Benz, so they have a German sugar daddy to take care of them. All along, I’ve been saying that Chrysler was in the woods right there alongside Ford and the General – and maybe they had it even worse ( as if that’s possible ). Why do I say that? Well, let’s take a look.
Chrysler is offering it’s dealers absolutely massive incentives to move leftover 06 product. When I say massive, I mean really, really big. As much as $7,000 – and that’s American dollars, not Canadian funny money. For every 06 Dodge Ram a Dodge dealer sells, Chrysler will send them a check for $7,000 – that’s no joke. I know, some of you are saying ‘ OMG that’s a great deal I always wanted to get me a Dodge pickemup truck yeehaw! ‘ But the rest of you are hopefully thinking that it’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever seen. How bad does your product have to be that you need to stroke a $7,000 check to your dealers for selling one? I mean, really. Chrysler will take an absolutely massive hit for this desperate attempt to reduce inventory promotion.
And that brings me to my next point – analysts are suggesting the big C may lose as much as $2 billion ( yes, with a B ) in the 4th quarter of this year. This is following a cool $1.5 billion loss in the third quarter – you’re going the wrong way guys! Anyone want to take bets on how long until Daimler-Benz tries to separate from this monetary black hole? I’d suggest that they sell it, but who in their right mind would pay money for Chrysler?
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