"When you play the game of thrones [chromes], you win, or you die [go bankrupt]. There is no middle ground." – Cersei Lannister

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An intense quote from an intense show, obviously slightly adapted by our team. However, in a commercial sense, it captures the intense competition necessary to succeed in profitably selling automobiles. You can engineer a great vehicle and produce it by the tens or hundreds of thousands, but you also must also ensure consumers will buy it. Your competitors can quickly get the drop on you by understanding any of these three steps better than you. The rewards are high but often fleeting in the auto industry. One day you’re on top; the next day, you’re majority owned by Uncle Sam or the United Autoworkers (UAW). The auto industry is capital intensive, high-risk and subject to the fickle whims of both consumers and congressional committees. The barriers to entry are sky-high, and while we’ve called the airlines in this column as subject to “bankruptcy dodgeball,” in the auto industry it’s more like “solvency hunger games.” As you can see above, only two American companies have avoided this fate.

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There’s always finger-pointing and Monday morning quarterbacking about reasons for spec...

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