DCX should sell Mercedes too
DaimlerChrysler has shown that it’s not very good at managing auto companies. Though dominant in trucks, the company has been less than stellar in cars. Mercedes cars have been overpriced, underwhelming in reliability (to put it nicely, since they’ve done far worse than supposedly “poor” Chrysler in most surveys), and losing ground off-and-on to Lexus, with some huge rebates in recent times. Chrysler has been so grossly mismanaged by DCX it would take many blog entries to cover the ways.
What’s really needed is to split off both car groups. Let them merge together, and leave the huge German empire of commercial trucks and old-boy-networks to have fun with whatever it likes to do. If Daimler-Benz wants to go off and buy some more companies and bankrupt them, that’s fine; it won’t interfere with Mercedes-Chrysler.
Mercedes-Chrysler would be able to make both Chryslers and Mercedes much better and more cheaply without DCX. Being headquartered in the innovative United States, rather than German, because that’s where the bulk of the business is, M-C would be able to use all those great German technologies developed in the Mercedes R&D labs - but unlike Mercedes, they’d figure out ways to use them more cheaply, more effectively, and more attractively for the car buyer. Rather than have arrogant engineers in Stuttgart decide what drivers like, Chrysler would actually watch and think about what car buyers do, and tailor the technologies to them instead of the other way around. The senior Mercedes engineers could work with the Chrysler kids (and senior Chrylser engineers could work with Mercedes kids) to combine the key lessons of experience with the exuberance and energy of youth.
Mercedes cars would become much cheaper, because Chrysler knows how to build cars well at reasonable cost, and because they could draw on the Chrysler parts base. Chrysler cars would become better, because they would not have to buy parts just to reduce Mercedes’ prices or because the parts were made or designed in Greater Germany. Indeed, one can see Mercedes replacing Imperial - as the best that Chrysler could accomplish, with a little help from across the pond.
Mercedes-Chrysler is an idea whose time has come. Will it happen? Well, probably not. But it’s a pleasant thought - a reorganization that would actually realize the benefits of the takeover.