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Who Makes This Car Anyway?
The motor industry consists of two kinds of manufacturers: Big and bigger. And they're always mergering and buying each other to get bigger. I'm here to answer two questions: Why it happens and How it affects the consumer.
It wasn't always like this. In the early days of the industry there were thousands of small independent auto manufacturers. But as the number of cars sold every year rose to tens and hundreds of millions, suddenly the small carmakers couldn't compete. In order to develop efficient production lines and sell masses of cars, you had to be big - in both resources and market share.
So they ganged up. FIAT (Italian Federation of Automobiles,Turino) swallowed Alpha Romeo, Lanchia and Mazartti. General motors is nothing but a lot of american carmakers united. Today the number of manufacturers reduces fast - almost as fast as the decrease in the market share of the small factories. Scary to think that now even giants as Mercedes and Chrysler join forces, makign a statement that they need to be even more monstrous than they already are to compete.
Scary I said? hardly. From the consumer's point of view, the more efficient the factory is ,the cheaper the product will be. Economics teaches us that when a single manufacturer is too big, he can abuse the market and charge higher prices. But this isn't the case here, since there are several powerful giants. It is my opinion,therefore, that the consumer only benefits from the enlargement of auto makers as they become more efficient yet continue to compete each other.
So when you go out there to buy a car, let's say it's a Citroen - You don't really care who actually makes it (Peugeot). You are getting a good product for a fair price. Your Rolls Royce is just as luxurious whether Wolkswagen owns it or not.
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