Ford and GM merger, Is It Even Possible?

[Baldilocks01SS]

Originally Posted by 396ssrat

The Auto industry in this country was once the driving force of our economy.
Frankly, I think it a shame that imported cars are being purchased by American citizens.

There was a long period of time when foreign cars were simply better.

[L8Apex]

Originally Posted by Baldilocks01SS

There was a long period of time when foreign cars were simply better.

Too long of a period, but thankfully it's over

[cellsafemode]

i'm pretty sure we're at the end of car ownership and variety anyway.

In the next decade or two we will see more lockdown by companies trying to control cars and turn them into cell phones you license and software you subscribe to.
Then we'll see a move towards automatic driving that eliminates human drivers and that will come from so many angles it's guaranteed. Insurance, personal finances, public finances, safety, convenience, speed. All better when humans aren't driving and everything is being orchestrated by a central computer that controls all the cars like chess pieces.
Pollution controls will only get stricter, moving towards electric.
People will get poorer due to cost of living increases and wage stagnation leading towards less cars being bought leading towards consolidation and homogenization.
More regulation and corporate backed laws prohibiting you from modifying cars and raising the bar of entry into the market so only existing mega corps can afford to sell cars.

By the time ford and gm combine nobody will care. Nobody will care which non-descript generic looking car they are ubering in is made by. It'll matter less than it matters what brand of airplane you're flying in and how it looks. And i'm certain i'll see that future in my lifetime. we're already seeing it begin and the momentum is unstoppable because it makes too much sense in every practical way. Owning a car is only a thing now because you have to in most cases as alternatives are not convenient enough and people still have enough expendable cash. In every other measure it's a stupid thing to buy and own. the alternative to ownership is quickly getting into the zone of acceptable for more and more people and is guaranteed to spread until it reaches critical mass. We're going to witness the end of personal vehicle ownership and I think far fewer people are going to mourn it than we'd think.

[ugxvibe]

No thank you.. I'll pass. However, they seem to be doing a lot of engineering together lately.

[Grimfrost769]

Originally Posted by cellsafemode

i'm pretty sure we're at the end of car ownership and variety anyway.

In the next decade or two we will see more lockdown by companies trying to control cars and turn them into cell phones you license and software you subscribe to.
Then we'll see a move towards automatic driving that eliminates human drivers and that will come from so many angles it's guaranteed. Insurance, personal finances, public finances, safety, convenience, speed. All better when humans aren't driving and everything is being orchestrated by a central computer that controls all the cars like chess pieces.
Pollution controls will only get stricter, moving towards electric.
People will get poorer due to cost of living increases and wage stagnation leading towards less cars being bought leading towards consolidation and homogenization.
More regulation and corporate backed laws prohibiting you from modifying cars and raising the bar of entry into the market so only existing mega corps can afford to sell cars.

By the time ford and gm combine nobody will care. Nobody will care which non-descript generic looking car they are ubering in is made by. It'll matter less than it matters what brand of airplane you're flying in and how it looks. And i'm certain i'll see that future in my lifetime. we're already seeing it begin and the momentum is unstoppable because it makes too much sense in every practical way. Owning a car is only a thing now because you have to in most cases as alternatives are not convenient enough and people still have enough expendable cash. In every other measure it's a stupid thing to buy and own. the alternative to ownership is quickly getting into the zone of acceptable for more and more people and is guaranteed to spread until it reaches critical mass. We're going to witness the end of personal vehicle ownership and I think far fewer people are going to mourn it than we'd think.

This sounds like some sort of industrial metal album and a terrible future. Damn bro. Kind of need to go do something fun after reading that suck parade lol.

[cellsafemode]

Originally Posted by Grimfrost769

This sounds like some sort of industrial metal album and a terrible future. Damn bro. Kind of need to go do something fun after reading that suck parade lol.

dont read about GM's plans with their new mid engine corvette. It's getting a crazy networking system to replace canbus and MOST to allow constant connectivity and remote updating just like your cell phone and tesla do. Combine that with their love of killing right to repair and how every company wants to make you subscribe vs buy and when you do buy, license vs own.

That paints a very costly future with less choice and less incentive to own by both the purchaser and the consumer.

You dont have to go far to read about how wages aren't increasing with inflation, (unless you're a CEO and part of the 1%, then your wages increase many times that of inflation every year). Then the cost of housing is increasing faster than inflation even, and it becomes pretty clear people are going to have to make a choice of changing what they buy. First it will be housing, since the alternatives of transportation are more immediately impactful to everyday life than renting your home vs owning it. We already see renting exceeding home ownership with no sign of that slowing down or reversing.

Leasing cars is already growing and has been for a while, but the next logical step for this is people moving towards ride services instead of leasing. This is on the borderline of cost-effective for day to day use because of human drivers. Once automated driving systems begin taking over in cities it will quickly expand out to more remote areas with less controllable driving conditions. At that point, the cost of ride services will plummet or the cost of car insurance for driving your own car will skyrocket. Either way you're out of the drivers seat.

We already have the current generation looking at the cost benefit of cars and going WTF. You pay so much for a car you're only in a couple hours of a day and then have to pay so much to have it sit parked depreciating in value for the the rest of the time. Or you can uber for a fraction of the cost. It's not even a decision (or wont be soon).

Welcome to car enthusiast dystopia. I see no way to avoid it barring some kind of mad-max apocalypse.

[hotlap]

Originally Posted by cellsafemode

i'm pretty sure we're at the end of car ownership and variety anyway.

In the next decade or two we will see more lockdown by companies trying to control cars and turn them into cell phones you license and software you subscribe to.
Then we'll see a move towards automatic driving that eliminates human drivers and that will come from so many angles it's guaranteed. Insurance, personal finances, public finances, safety, convenience, speed. All better when humans aren't driving and everything is being orchestrated by a central computer that controls all the cars like chess pieces.
Pollution controls will only get stricter, moving towards electric.
People will get poorer due to cost of living increases and wage stagnation leading towards less cars being bought leading towards consolidation and homogenization.
More regulation and corporate backed laws prohibiting you from modifying cars and raising the bar of entry into the market so only existing mega corps can afford to sell cars.

By the time ford and gm combine nobody will care. Nobody will care which non-descript generic looking car they are ubering in is made by. It'll matter less than it matters what brand of airplane you're flying in and how it looks. And i'm certain i'll see that future in my lifetime. we're already seeing it begin and the momentum is unstoppable because it makes too much sense in every practical way. Owning a car is only a thing now because you have to in most cases as alternatives are not convenient enough and people still have enough expendable cash. In every other measure it's a stupid thing to buy and own. the alternative to ownership is quickly getting into the zone of acceptable for more and more people and is guaranteed to spread until it reaches critical mass. We're going to witness the end of personal vehicle ownership and I think far fewer people are going to mourn it than we'd think.

The first company to create a self driving gaming room / IMAX theater wins.

[Smokin19]

Has everyone already forgotten that Ford and GM have already cooperated on the developement of the A10 transmission. I think they have cooperated on a lot more things that we may not even know of yet.

[KMPrenger]

Originally Posted by cellsafemode

i'm pretty sure we're at the end of car ownership and variety anyway.

In the next decade or two we will see more lockdown by companies trying to control cars and turn them into cell phones you license and software you subscribe to.
Then we'll see a move towards automatic driving that eliminates human drivers and that will come from so many angles it's guaranteed. Insurance, personal finances, public finances, safety, convenience, speed. All better when humans aren't driving and everything is being orchestrated by a central computer that controls all the cars like chess pieces.
Pollution controls will only get stricter, moving towards electric.
People will get poorer due to cost of living increases and wage stagnation leading towards less cars being bought leading towards consolidation and homogenization.
More regulation and corporate backed laws prohibiting you from modifying cars and raising the bar of entry into the market so only existing mega corps can afford to sell cars.

By the time ford and gm combine nobody will care. Nobody will care which non-descript generic looking car they are ubering in is made by. It'll matter less than it matters what brand of airplane you're flying in and how it looks. And i'm certain i'll see that future in my lifetime. we're already seeing it begin and the momentum is unstoppable because it makes too much sense in every practical way. Owning a car is only a thing now because you have to in most cases as alternatives are not convenient enough and people still have enough expendable cash. In every other measure it's a stupid thing to buy and own. the alternative to ownership is quickly getting into the zone of acceptable for more and more people and is guaranteed to spread until it reaches critical mass. We're going to witness the end of personal vehicle ownership and I think far fewer people are going to mourn it than we'd think.

"...we're already seeing it begin and the momentum is unstoppable because it makes too much sense in every practical way"

Bingo.

I hate to say it, but I feel the exact same way and I pretty much agree with everything you said. Eventually the only people actually driving will be people living in very non urban areas where it may still be allowed, or perhaps those people whom can afford to drive for fun/sport on tracks. Car enthusiast will be a very small (much smaller than today even) subset of people whom have a love for history, or a means in which they can actually compete whether by hobby or for sport on race tracks.

Ford, GM...any automaker knows that their company as it exists today won't be around forever. I just can't decide how long its going to take before GM is only producing vehicles for sport, and then autonomous (pods if you will) vehicles that people don't actually own, but just ride in to get around. I'm saying somewhere between 20 - 40 years.

[Baldilocks01SS]

Originally Posted by KMPrenger

"...we're already seeing it begin and the momentum is unstoppable because it makes too much sense in every practical way"

Bingo.

I hate to say it, but I feel the exact same way and I pretty much agree with everything you said. Eventually the only people actually driving will be people living in very non urban areas where it may still be allowed, or perhaps those people whom can afford to drive for fun/sport on tracks. Car enthusiast will be a very small (much smaller than today even) subset of people whom have a love for history, or a means in which they can actually compete whether by hobby or for sport on race tracks.

Ford, GM...any automaker knows that their company as it exists today won't be around forever. I just can't decide how long its going to take before GM is only producing vehicles for sport, and then autonomous (pods if you will) vehicles that people don't actually own, but just ride in to get around. I'm saying somewhere between 20 - 40 years.

That's if the world lasts that long....

[Need4Camaro]

Originally Posted by staples87

Cool concept, but wouldn't this be considered a monopoly by the government? I couldn't foresee this going through.

Isn't that the name of the game in America?

[RenegadeXR]

In the short term, I think a merger is pretty unlikely. In the long term (20+ years), I think we're going to see a mass extinction of brands due to the inevitable changing markets. There are a lot of promising electric car companies like Rivian who might need to lean heavily on the manufacturing expertise and resources of well-established brands. Tesla, although a halo brand of sorts, is barely profitable and teeters on the edge of bankruptcy even with the Model 3 being out for a while. I have a feeling they won't be around at the end of it all despite having kickstarted things.

I think we'll see a lot of startups get acquired over the next decade and their technology or even branding will end up being a key selling point of major existing car companies who themselves will potentially undergo a re-branding. Like instead of Ford, Chevy, and Rivian existing as separate entities, you'd have a trunk called the [some brand name] Rivian that uses Ford and GM plants. Maybe that brand name would just be "Ford" for the sake of brand value and a sense of heritage, or maybe it'll be something else. Maybe they'll actually make it Ford / GMC and have GMC offer a lower-cost option to Ford vehicles but be otherwise identical, like Chevy / GMC does today. So you'd be able to buy a Ford Rivian or GMC Rivian.

There's no doubt personal car ownership is going to end one day, but I do strongly believe we're at least 50-100 years out from that. In the US, we can barely maintain our infrastructure as it is. Getting it optimized for autonomous driving is going to be a huge task.

[cellsafemode]

autonomous driving is only needed to reduce the cost of ride services. It's not a requirement for everything i posted about to come about.

if ride services with human drivers can remain cost effective or become more cost effective due to rising cost of living and stagnant wages then you have a drop and eventual end of personal car ownership and thus a massive consolidation of brands all the same.

10-20 years. 1 to maybe 2 generations of the status quo even without autonomous driving and we'll witness the collapse. We're very close to the tipping point where people are choosing if they can afford car payments or rent payments on a massive scale now. It isn't getting better. Owning a home isn't even a consideration for the current generation in most places people live. Owning a car is a necessary evil to most that they'll drop the moment it makes financial sense without losing quality of life.

[IOMCamaroSS]

Originally Posted by cellsafemode

autonomous driving is only needed to reduce the cost of ride services. It's not a requirement for everything i posted about to come about.

if ride services with human drivers can remain cost effective or become more cost effective due to rising cost of living and stagnant wages then you have a drop and eventual end of personal car ownership and thus a massive consolidation of brands all the same.

10-20 years. 1 to maybe 2 generations of the status quo even without autonomous driving and we'll witness the collapse. We're very close to the tipping point where people are choosing if they can afford car payments or rent payments on a massive scale now. It isn't getting better. Owning a home isn't even a consideration for the current generation in most places people live. Owning a car is a necessary evil to most that they'll drop the moment it makes financial sense without losing quality of life.

I think you need to move out of Commiefornia. Reading all your posts in various threads, you seem miserable.