Let's go Dutch... on a station wagon. Fiat Chrysler just proposed a 50-50 merger with Renault that would create the #3 car company behind Toyota and VW. If Renault accepts, 9M cars would roll off this car-glomerate's assembly lines annually, looking like this:
- Fiat-Chrysler: The Italian-American combo-company invested big in its Jeep and Dodge trucks/SUVs.
- Renault: The affordable/adorable French cars don't get bought in 4x4-loving America, but they've got fans across Europe, Russia, and the Middle East.
- Mitsubishi & Nissan: The Japanese carmakers already allied up with Renault, so this merger would expand the open-relationship to include 15M total cars — That's more than any other.
The car industry is hard... Margins (aka the amount of profit companies can squeeze out of each dollar of revenue they earn) are already skinny in the car industry since there's so much competition. And car parts aren't cheap. Now the old guard carmakers are bracing for new tech change:
- Car-sharing and ride-hailing help you not own a car.
- Climate change policies require century-old engines to go electric.
- Self-driving tech could help a 2-car family easily survive on just 1.
This is Westeros-style houses uniting... At its most basic level, the merger would let the companies pool resources so they're stronger together (picture Daenerys + Jon Snow). Here are hookups already happening:
- BMW and Mercedes-owner Daimler are building a Europe-wide charging network together for their e-cars.
- Ford and Volkswagen are trans-Atlantic-ing the race to self-driving car tech.