General Motors Corp. and Renault-Nissan say they have cut off discussions on forming an alliance.

 

Did anyone expect it to actually happen? GM's problems are not about being too small of a company.....how would getting bigger help anything?

 

Pretty much!

There are also rumors of Ford Nissan/Renault talks. But I don't think much will happen there either.

 

I can tell you without a doubt that is not happening either. Ford and GM get nothing back from such an alliance. Nissan and Renault are tiny companies with plenty of problems of their own.

 

heard at ford today :

"riiinnng -riiiing
'click' "yes hello who's calling please?"
"oh hello Mr Ghosn! Just a moment Please"

for some reason i hear it in a british accent /start of amonty python sketch sort of way.

 

I think there are good benefits for GM/Ford in the short run

ford and GM have too much production capacity at the moment, prompting them to cut shifts and shutting down plants. Nissan on the other hand cant get enough production capacity in the US. An alliance would help GM/Ford in a lot of costs associated with cutting production and closing plants.

there are also various long term benefits in terms of sharing technologies and platforms and financing joint ventures. This can be especially helpful in the European market. Of course there are tons of problems that can arise from such an aliance too, such as quality control and personale allocations etc.

but suffice to say there are definetly viable advantages, or they wouldnt bother looking at this. the disadvantages may verywell outweigh the advantages. In GM's case though i think its more of a case of the top level brass scared of loosing power and control.

theres also talk of an GM-FORD alliance. hehe.

 

Ford has over-capacity issues and you don't see Mazda building vehicles in those plants. There is no proof that Nissan would start building vehicles in shuttered GM plants. The companies already share technology costs with the suppliers that actually make the parts. Those suppliers hold the patents on some of technology and share it with other OEM's.

No auto company is a stand-alone company these days.......they're all weaved into a very large web. What happens to one will affect the others drastically. Too many OEM's rely on suppliers that rely on other OEM's......all needing each other to stay in business.

Those outside of the auto business would be surprised at how little the OEM's actually make anymore. The badge on your vehicle should really say "Pioneer/Lear/JohnsonControls/Pollack/Methode/Carlite/Dana/BorgWarner/TRW/Plastec/Delphi/Denso/Bosch/CollinsAikman/PPG"

 

ahem, Mazda6 shares the plant w/ Mustang and all the Mazda6 clones in at their Flat Rock, MI plant...

 

The AAI plant has been around a long time. Ford and Mazda have shared this plant for years......long before Ford had excess capacity. The shared production goes back before the 929 and Probe were built there in the early 90's.