by Gadiel McGarrean

Created on: April 25, 2007   Last Updated: May 15, 2007

The passion has not left car manufacturing, deconsolidation has. There had once been many, many car companies operating independent of eachother. Now there are conglomerates, it is easy to understand why they would want to homogenize. Homogenization happens when markets become oligopolistic, as the world auto industry has-especially the slice we see in the US.

A market is oligopolistic when there are a few major competitors who act in referrence to eachother in order to maintain their market share. The passion is gone because their is no incentive for it-why set yourself apart when you stand to see no gain from it? Why set youself apart if doing so alienates your wide range of clients and thus diminishes you market share? These are things commonly held.

I disagree to some extent, look at the dodge brand. They went crazy just a few years ago and reintroduced the hemi, everything was suddenly big and bold, the hemis flew off of the shelves. The showed us their passion, they separated themselves from the market of curvy quiet trucks with some rather ridiculous peices that brought out the child in their clients and reeled in the revenue. Despite climatalogical concerns, it was a brilliant move. It was exaclty what the truck market wanted and it grew their market share. Despite this success other problems have left daimler chrysler on the trading block again.h While homogenization is to blame for the lack of passion, it is not to blame with the failure of daimler chrysler,as there are many many problems pervading the US auto industry these days.

If there were more more independent companies, rather than the few conglomerates, the passion would be back. The reason why one car looks the same as another made by a different conglomerate( not a different brand-fords look like mercurys because they are made by the same people, Mazda6s look like Nissan Altimas because they are mimmicking eachother and trying to capture the success the other one had with similar designs). If I had a tiny car company, would I make a car that looked like a Nissan Altima? No, of course not-why? Because I can never compete on the same plane as Nissan and people would much rather buy a nissan since it is so similar to mine. If I made say cars with redesigns from the 30s, I would get more customers because there arent many brand new 30s style sedans rolling off assembly lines.So because I am so small I must set myself apart to make a mark, distiguish myself and attract customers with my uniqueness.

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>