Word: auto
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...follow $4.7 billion in profits during the previous three years. The profit stream will enable Chrysler to devote a hefty $12.5 billion between 1986 and 1990 to developing new models and equipping old factories to produce them. During that time, Chrysler plans to rebuild aggressively its share of the auto market to nearly the level it claimed before the company's slide in the late 1970s. At Chrysler's 1987-model preview in September at Texas Stadium in suburban Dallas, Iacocca announced that the company aims to boost its share from 11% to 15% at the rate of about...
...been a relative lack of large, high- powered vehicles, which have become hot items during the current economic expansion. In the early 1980s the automaker specialized in small, economical cars, but the markups on those models are slight compared with the margins on more expensive vehicles. "In the auto business, luxury and profits have become synonymous," says James Alexandre, who follows the industry for the investment firm Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette. To help fill its luxury niche, Chrysler is gradually buying control of the Italian automaker Maserati. The first jointly produced car, priced at about $30,000 and code-named...
...main ingredient Petersen has in mind. While all the Big Three automakers have boosted the dependability of their cars, Ford has perhaps made the biggest issue of it. Known for turning out some inferior vehicles during its troubled years, Ford says it has increased the dependability of its autos 50% since 1980 by tightening its standards for parts suppliers and getting employees involved in decision making, among other techniques. Reliability will continue to be an important goal in Detroit, since the U.S. auto industry's quality levels still lag behind Japan's. According to the California consulting firm J.D. Power...
...penny-pinching moves have come just in time; criticism of GM's bloated size has been reaching a peak. Says one prominent critic, Maryann Keller, who follows the auto industry for the investment firm of Furman Selz Mager Dietz & Birney: "GM has done more to help itself in the last three months than it has in the last few years combined." But GM's Smith will have to cut costs even more dramatically if he hopes to quiet the company's sharp- tongued gadfly, H. Ross Perot, chairman of Dallas-based Electronic Data Systems. Perot, who joined the GM board...
...main handicap at the moment is its high production costs, which analysts put at $11,500 an auto, compared with $9,800 at Ford and $9,300 at Chrysler. A prime reason, ironically, is GM's multibillion-dollar rush to reduce labor costs by installing robotic factories, many of which still have bugs. Example: at Detroit's Poletown luxury-car plant, the taillights on some models tended to melt in the automated paint-hardening ovens. The technology * should gradually become a financial advantage as it begins to operate more smoothly. Says Chairman Smith: "You know we are not making clothespins...