The long and winding road

It’s been a long and not-so-hot summer for automakers. The third quarter has always been a seasonally weak earnings period for the industry but this year a confluence of factors have added to the challenges. By themselves, any of these factors may be manageable for an industry with deep pockets and enormous financial flexibility. Taken in aggregate, however, they define a terrain that is difficult for even the best-managed company to navigate successfully.

At the heart of the problem for the Big