No one dealing with Chrysler's issues today is (or should) care how profitable or not Chrysler was ten years ago...nor does what MB did or didn't do to them have any real bearing on today either. I suspect, however, that Chrysler would be loosing money today whether MB was ever in the picture because Chrysler's most significant problems didn't/don't exist because of MB.

I don't have access to Chrysler's internal financial records (I doubt you do either) so I don't know if they are actually making a profit on the Ram (with or w/o the UAW) but I suspect they aren't. In any case, I'm not suggesting that the Ram should go away and the Titan remain - I AM suggesting that such decisions aren't going to be made on such simple issues as how many units each sells as some seem to be proposing.

As to the UAW - well, I think most know how I feel about the UAW.

Detroit made that bed a long time ago and if that arrangement is a competitive disadvantage today; that isn't the fault of automakers who aren't unionized.

 

Actually, he is right. Chrysler was profitable and even had a big cash stash.

 

Whether that's accurate or not (I'm not saying it isn't); what difference does it make to the decisions that have to be made today?

 

If it is going to be the same Truck come 2011 then Ram is by far the way to go since that brand out sells almost Titan 10 to 1. Think Saturn or GMC vs. Chevy, many times they are selling the same vehicle but the Chevy always wins in sales.

You just got to accept that the Titan has been a flop and the last two generations of Rams have been huge successes. I bet Chrysler make more money on the Ram than Nissan on the Titan. Where Nissan is more successful than Chrysler is with small cars, and it is smart to got to them to get vehicles like the Hornet built.

 

I can't believe you said that - any company stupid enough to be selling the same truck in 2011 as they do today deserves to be bankrupt.

Yeah...once again, I guess that's why Chrysler is close to closing its doors.

Do you have real numbers to back up that assertion or did you just pull it out of your backside? I suspect it's the latter.

As to the rest of it, you sound like some salesman who thinks selling units (of anything) at a loss is Ok because he can make it up in volume.

 

The Titan may have been a flop in sales but it is an amazing truk period. The best most fun I have ever driven. If I did not take a job where I had to travel between 5 states I would have kept it and my charger RT. It had a sound and feel that was not isolated. you feel connected. I love the endurance engine. it may have been a Japanese brand but the guys that designed and built it knew exactly how to make a truck Americans would love because they were Americans.

 

I was talking about the 2011 Titan and Ram being the same truck. Plus model year 2011 is only 1 year 8 months away.

Chrysler has other problems. Ram has been good to them.

No Numbers but I'd bet Nissan would rather have 300,000 Titans sold per year rather than 30,000-40,000 especially since their original goal was 100,000.

 

[QUOTE=Z28x;5319738]I was talking about the 2011 Titan and Ram being the same truck. Plus model year 2011 is only 1 year 8 months away.[/quite]
Except your assertion is exactly NOT what Nissan and Chrysler agreed to do.


It may be correct to say that the Ram has been good to them but I think you are living in a dream world my friend…one of the major reasons Chrysler is near throwing in the towel is because of their poor truck sales…everything was fairly rosy at all three Detroit automakers until trucks and SUV sales started heading south.


Ignoring the fact that Canton likely couldn't build that many units in a year, of course they would like to sell 300K units a year but that has zero to do with your initial assertion that Chrysler makes more money on the Ram than Nissan on the Titan. Were you talking about gross revenue that is likely a correct statement, if you are talking about profit then the assertion is ridiculous. Were it not, Chrysler would not need someone to help bail them out of their financial mess.

 

You seem to be under the impression that the Ram is the only product that Chysler makes. There's another 20 or so nameplates out there that should be shouldering the majority of the blame for Chrysler's current predicament. To say that because Chrysler is losing money, and therefore the Ram must be losing money and causing that, is foolish.

I obviously don't have access to Chrysler's numbers, but I would bet my house that the Ram line is indeed profitable. First, it's long been acknowledged that trucks and SUVs have been the source of most of Detroit's profits for the past few years, earning anywhere from $5-15k per unit. There's no reason to expect Ram is significantly different. Second, if Ram is not profitable, that would mean that essentially no Chrysler vehicle is profitable, and if that were the case their losses would be far greater than they currently are. Fact is, Ram's profits help defray some of, but not all of the losses racked up by the rest of the division, with overall result being a (relatively) moderate loss. Without Ram, Chrysler probably would have been bankrupt years ago.

Regarding the Ram's profitablility relative to Titan, I would again vote in favour or the Ram. For the sake of simplicity, if you assume both trucks have similar content, selling well over 4 times the volume of Rams is huge in terms of volume purchasing and spreading out fixed costs. Look at it this way: if Nissan spent $1 billion developing Titan, and they only sell 400,000 units in total, each truck is carrying $2500 of fixed cost. And then there's the cost of the factory they built to assemble the things. With Ram's volume advantage, both their fixed and variable costs are likely to be significantly less.

While there may be other factors, volume is going to be far and away the main one. If Titan is built on Ram's platform in Ram's factory, their cost is going to be pretty much the same. So the question becomes which one can maximize revenue, and it's quite clear that Ram is the one.

Another issue that would arise in such a Ram-or-Titan scenario is what to do with the HD trucks. AFAIK they aren't part of the deal mentioned in the original article. Yet HDs generate a tremendous amount of profit. So if Ram went away, do they rebadge the HDs as Titans? That would be a sure recipe for failure.

 

What happens when Chrysler uses GM's two-mode system? Will Nissan get thier hands on that, or will they continue to use the Toyota system?

 

Not by a long shot...the Ram just happens to be the subject at hand.

You are assuming a hell of a lot of facts not in evidence to support your assumptions one of the wildest being that Nissan spend $1B on development of the the Titan.

Nissan's vehicles and foreign brands in general are more profitable because the manufacturing processes used are efficient (usually significantly more effecient than most manufactureres) and because their costs per unit is generally significantly less per unit than most other manufacturers, especially Detroit nameplates.

And if you think Chrysler 's losses are "moderate" you really need to take a hard look at some annual reports.

 

I said if Nissan spent $1 billion ... it wasn't a statement of fact, just an illustration to show how the math works. Although that would by no means be an outrageous figure for a new vehicle.

I meant "moderate" only in the context that if it hadn't been for the Ram, they would have been far worse.

 

Ok.

But believe me when I say that Nissan spending $1B to develop the Titan would be an outrageous figure; in fact, I can't think of any vehicle being manufactured today for which the manufacturer spend a $1B to develop (at least not any manufacturere that would still be in business)!

 

Seriously? Automakers are naturally tight-lipped about such things, but from the occasional bit that has been leaked, $1B is nothing nowadays to design a new vehicle from the ground up. Heck, a new engine program can cost close to that. A more famous (and public) example is the Mondeo that Ford designed back in the 1990s: it was widely rumoured to cost $6 billion, even back then. So I don't think it would be a stretch at all to say that the all-new Titan could have cost Nissan $1B to develop.

 

Vehicel development is seriously expensive but yes, I really am serious and let's just leve it at that..