guionM

Chrysler has been profitable for 9 quarters now, and has increased market share to 13.9%. If you want to compare, GM is now down to just over 20%.

Chrysler's success? Primarily from a boost in sales of..... are you ready for this?.......CARS!

Another intresting bit:

Mercedes Benz is the one dragging DamilerChrysler's earnings down.

Chrysler Division: $374 million profit
Mercedes Benz: $610 million loss
Even Smart made $526 million.

For comparison, GM lost $1.6 BILLION, Ford: $284 million

Even stranger, the Jeep Wrangler & the huge Dodge Ram have set new sales records this quarter.

Not dancing at anyone's misfortunes. This simply vindicates my view that all this finger pointing about imports, unfair press, the UAW, and all the other nonsense that tends to surface everytime bad news in the US auto industry surfaces (especially GM), is just baloney.

Make cars and trucks that people actually WANT and you don't have to resort to gimicks, firesales, or blame-gaming.

Full story:
http://www.detnews.com/2005/autosins...A01-361733.htm

Stealth 86 LSC

wow, just over an hour with no reply on this forum, thats crazy? that said, go chrylser! a good show from whats left of the former big 3 is better than no show at all.

Derek M

Nice to see one semi American car company doing well. Let's only hope that fresh car offerings from Ford and GM will net the same result in the short term as well.

2000GTP

Ditto to that.

Chris 96 WS6

Don't you mean its nice to see a German car company do well? I'd not call Daimler-Chrysler any more american at this point than Nissan.

number_77

I really think DCX will become #2 in the next 5 years. Now between the Toyota vs. GM thing, the winner will take #1, the loser will take on Ford for #3

falchulk

Here we go again.....................

96_Camaro_B4C

The fact that Chrysler is doing ok (for now) does not mean that the "nonsense" about the UAW, the press, the imports, the legacy costs, etc. are "baloney". Also, it isn't like Chrysler sells all its vehicles with no rebates. Other than the maybe the LX cars and the the Viper, they are discounting the hell out of their regular cars and trucks too.

GM wasn't the only one doing big rebates or "employee discounts".

But yes, obviously product is part of it. The fact remains, though, that GM is currently sized to be comfortably profitable at a much higher market share than they will be able to sustain in this era of competitiveness. The days of one company owning 35-40% (let alone 50%) are pretty much dead and gone.

Chrome383Z

I agree to that. Too much competition. When it was just GM/Ford/Dodge with the imports 70s/80s crap it totally makes sense GM or Ford could have extreme market share. GM/Ford pretty much forced Dodge out of business. Now the Imports are doing the same and GM/Ford will have to downsize slightly, but will still keep a decent margin. 15-25% should be their "comfort zone" with 15% still making money, and 25% barely able to produce. Maybe less supply and more demand would help them out.

91_z28_4me

Look at the krauts dragging down an American company! How do you not make money selling cars that cost as much as Mercedes do?

guionM

Gotta disagree, and here's why.

First, when Daimler "bought" Chrysler, they raped the company. Chrysler's cash reserve went to develop Smart and to expand MB's model lineup. What was left went to big bonuses to Mercedes Benz factory workers. Chrysler got zip, and ended up having their product lineup frozen for at least 3 years. Chrysler was treated like an unwanted stepchild (MB wanted the profit making Jeep line) for a number of years afterwards.

Now, Chrysler is essentially carrying Daimler. Because the Chrysler division has been forced to survive on their own, while Daimler poured it's money (and most all of the money from the "old" Chrysler Corperation), and outside of sending money home to Germany, Chrysler is still an American division.

Holden is still Australian (at least before the past year) & Opel is still German despite being owned by GM, Mitsubishi and Mazda are still Japanese, despite being essentially run by Daimler & Ford respectively. Chrysler is still American.... at least waaaaaaay more than Nissan.

SSbaby

How far is Chrysler from Ford in respect to US market share?

Kevin_G

American division of a German company.

Aeromaks

cept we are forgetting one thing... chrysler would not be where it is now if it wasnt for daimler and its parts bin, and its backing of chrysler.

91_z28_4me

I will disagree with that. I think Chrysler could have developed the 300 and other lx cars on its own. Just because a few rear suspension peices were similar designs to the older Mercedes design it doesn't mean that the LX line is a copy of older Benz cars. Far from it the Chrylser lineup would most likely be the same cars with nearly identical drivetrains except that they would have been out sooner. Also I expect that manuals would have been available on the sport models across the line.