But the thing that's super stark is how many marquees Stellantis have; I can't help but think that some consolidation and focusing of resources would be beneficial (and I'm well aware that plenty is shared already).
Stellantis is where all the brands with slipping or already low quality go, so having a lot of different brands at various price points is their thing.
That's unfair. Maybe that was somewhat true to an extent for the American part of FCA, but isn't for PSA and Opel. The latter were in not great shape under GM for decades, but were turned around by PSA in a few years. Peugeot, Citroen, DS, Opel have good reputation.
I don't know in the last 5 years, but Opel had a lot of different faults due to cost cutting measures, and depending of the model and the year of the different Peugeot and Citroën, it has or not lot of problems.
One one hand, we have the examples of those models that had the infamous FAP HDi 110 hp engine that gives a lot of problems, and Citroën's "Hydractive" (hydropneumatic) suspension was discarded due to the many problems they gave. We had a 1st gen Citroën C5, that had those two, and it needed to visit the garage every every 2 year to have some pretty costly repairs. Also, some of their newer cars with AdBlue have factory design problems in this system, and repairing that module is knowing that is gonna be relatively expensive and it's gone to fail in the future.
On the other hand, we had models like the Xsara, the 206, the 406, the C15, the Partner/Berlingo combo, and many others that were very reliable cars that rarely had problems.
Peugeot seem to be doing ok in terms of quality in the last decade. It seems to me that they do a lot of horizontal segmentation, having the same cars sold under different brands in different markets.
They’ve given all the brands a budget and a time box to turn things around. Those that do will be retained, the others will go. My wife was a chemist there for a few years, since before it became Stellantis.
They keep all the marquees because they sell better in the various European national markets, but many models are now the same platform with some small aesthetic changes. For example the new electric citroen berlingo / fiat doblo / opel combo are the same car:
Yes and unfortunately that's what Chrysler are well known for. Hopefully their culture of churning rebadged (I am a bit harsh here) car has died with the merger of all of those corporation.
Chrysler has been taken over by different entities throughout the last 40 years but somehow managed to drag the new owner down every time. A bit like Rover before the Chinese takeover.
Heh, I debated putting a second paragraph about this. And yes, while it's not like they're paying the entire cost of developing a car from scratch each time, there's still a lot of duplication of work.
They still have a fair number of unique parts, they still have a fair amount of individual development and certification, they still have their own parts supply chains… these all add costs compared with literally having the same vehicle.
It's not that I see no reason to have multiple marques—after all, there is meaningful differentiation between the different VW ones, for example. But at some point you've got to stop and ask when you have too many.
The original mother company of Fiat/FCA (Exor, controlled by the Agnelli family) now merged in Stellantis, also own stakes in Ferrari, CNH Industrial (New Holland Tractors, Case and other industrial and farming equipements), Iveco and a bunch of other brands.
Quite a concentration of companies.
Interestingly, TCS (Tata Consultancy Services) which many people on HN would recognize, is a publicly traded company- yet something like 70% of it's shares are owned by Tata Group, and it's a massive part of their income.
> it's a massive part of their income
I'm pretty sure the income is massive, but it might not be where the majority of the money comes from.
Tata is a huge conglomerate with businesses that apparently have nothing to do with each other.
Steel, Salt, coffee/tea, hotel chains, multiple airlines, IT, car companies, watches, financial companies, phone companies (?), jewellery, air conditioners, the list goes on.
(Whether any of their products are good is a different matter; it may or may not be — I don't really know.)
Tata motors in India has been pretty good over the last few years. They now make very desirable products designed for the Indian market — ie., spacious, efficient, practical cars with good enough performance, reliability, high scores in GNCAP crash tests, at a price which a lot of Indians can afford.
Tata cars probably won't win any races, but they have finally figured out the pulse of the Indian market.
I worked for Jaguar Land Rover for 7 years. It almost never came up. I would say that most of the company operates independently. Occasionally we would engage with Tata's other arms (I recall early on doing work with TCS - Tata Consulting Services to do some software development.)
Sometimes as I'm out and about I'll see old Ford-era Jaguars and I'm pleased that the company has independence to make its own vehicles.
Anyone interested in this should dive into the NHTSA data. Something like “make by manufacturer” explains this quite nicely, albeit without the history that the article nicely explained. Example: https://transportation.report/manufacturer/976/
Wow, I don't follow car news recently, so just now discovered Peugeot, Citroen, Fiat and Opel have same owner now (Stellantis), still can't comprehened how could be such merger approved by regulators.
Also was aware that Nissan and Renault cooperate, but didn't know there is also Mitshubishi with them. Btw. Adobe Acrobat logo would like to have a word.
That's when GM had his crisis and sold of all its non-US brands Opel, Vauxhall and so to PSA. It was a big mess.
Then just recently FCA and PSA formed Stellantis.
PSA and Fiat worked together previously, as their van the Fiat Ducato is basically the same as the vans from PSA group and the same as the Iveco Daily. They closely worked also together in other areas.
The small cars by Fiat was also partly joined development with Opel in the mid 1990. That relationship worked loosely for years, even while Opel still was part of GM.
Also later, as an example I have a 2006 Opel (Vauxhall) Vectra C 1.9 TD, the engine (and well as the Saab 9-3 one) is a FIAT one, and they share quite a few "common" parts outside the engine with the Fiat Croma.
I faintly recall that this was in part a response to VW growing too big in the years before. Before the merger Fiat, who was struggling at the time, tried to fusion with Renault but the French government blocked it.
While being not even the biggest in total number of sales (wikipedia says fifth). I still find it strange that it's a Dutch company (and Fiat Chrystler before it), since the Netherlands has no local-origin car manufacturer since DAF-Cars was sold to Volvo in the '70.
The reason for being a Dutch company is purely for a taxation advantage, and it goes back to the fact that FIAT/FCA moved its headquarters to the Netherlands under Marchionne's leadership.
Other italian companies (Mediaset owned by Berlusconi Family) did this too recently: ( https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2021/09/18/mediaset-la-sede... )
I think Netherlands is just a convenient place for European multinationals to incorporate. ST Micro, another Italo-French company is incorporated there for example.
While STMicroelectronics corporate headquarters and the headquarters for EMEA region are based in the Canton of Geneva, the holding company, STMicroelectronics N.V. is incorporated in the Netherlands.
> The Netherlands entire business is to be a tax haven inside the EU market.
while taxation in NL is lower than other countries like italy or French, it is not a tax haven, which is a precise definition that involves also border line legal activities.
what you maybe mean is that NL was able to lower taxes on companies because they understand their values, while other nations decided to go for a "tax the sh*t out of everything" and now they are surprised that companies are closing or moving to other nations.
the actual reasons for FCA and Mediaset to move to NL was more about legal :
on average in italy you get a decision in 5 years, in NL on average it takes 6 months.
It would be interesting to see this for auto component companies. For example AC Delco used to be owned by GM, then was spun off as part of Delphi, which changed its name to Aptiv.
We've had 3 DSG cars between us - no problems so far. Mind you, they were under warranty and we get them regularly serviced.
My current car is a 1l 3-cylinder DSG Kamiq - which I am pretty happy with. Only complaint being the slow starting touch screen and the move away from physical buttons (e.g. for heated windscreen).
I always wanted something like this but for all companies. I feel like it would be a great tool to help people understand how giant conglomerates are actually a big part of what we consume.
My favorite are outdoor clothing companies which almost all tie-in to the same Chinese investment fund. Or how glasses companies all belong to that one French conglomerate.
Which brands are you talking about and could you point to something showing the ownership (not doubting you, just wondering). Looking up Patagonia, Columbia, and VF Corp (North Face, Timberland, etc) none of them appear to be Chinese owned, but its quite likely their Wikipedia page is missing info.
I know anta sports (Chinese) owns Arc'teryx and Salomon (and other brands as well), which are both big deals in very niche parts of outdoors companies (mountaineering/climbing and trail running/skiing respectively) but I don't think there's any single Chinese company that owns all the outdoor brands, unless anta is owned by some other company. Luxottica, the eyeglass company gp referred to is also Italian, not French (afaik), and their stranglehold was weakening with online retailers breaking in (last I checked was ~5 years ago, this might have regressed since).
The more interesting/disgusting part is that they own EyeMed, so for many people they also get your insurance premium, and then also what you pay for glasses or whatever.
I liked their stuff more when it was made in Canada. Some of it is still pretty good and if you get on sale/clearance/used its not that bad. I've had some jackets for 10 years.
Same here - fond memories of visiting the factory to buy seconds in Vancouver. Recently had a bad experience with a failure of a brand new glove followed by lousy customer service - ended up just throwing away the thing. (The plural of anecdote is not data, I know...) But with so many alternatives that don't fund dictatorships I don't see why I should buy their stuff if I don't have too...
good direction but impractical.. a tech lead at Starbucks quipped "we don't actually know how many people work at Starbucks right now" .. huh? because, though they do have modern cloudy tech, there is meat-space time involved in edge transition from state of employed to not-employed, etc. So it is true, even with "perfect" observation of events, the leaders have ranges, not hard numbers.
So it is with markets. There are indistinct conditions that may exist for some time, and decay, and financial privacy, etc. So even given "perfect" observation of events, it is not fully transparent.
Nor would you want it, I argue. Once you as an individual are involved with markets and partners and committed relationships, some faceless bureacracy is tracking your parking spending? or more to the point, your ownership stakes? So we must re-invent public markets. Too much to change at once, and imperfect cooperation, so.. set a direction. "messy"
At least here in Norway, I can look up an organization and see all owners of that company last year. And press a button and it calculates the "true"/indirect owners up the chain as well.
I can also go the other way. Select a person, and see what they own through multiple layers of companies.
All companies have to provide a list of owners each year to our tax agency Skatteetaten ("IRS"). The data isn't exactly publicly available AFAIK, but anyone can ask for access.
It lists owners, but as you can see it's mostly "Holding Companies". However, pressing "Indirekte eierskap og eiere" ("Indirect ownerships") one can see the true companies or persons behind those.
there is no rational comparison to the economy and laws of Norway, to that of the USA. Even with oil wealth, the population and value of the Norway economy amounts to a tiny percentage of the activity in the USA, and many, many USA-based companies are multinational. Hvordan kan du bruke Norges lover til å styre USA? alvor
"~80% of the 50 largest public companies are connected to one another through 1 or more shared board member(s)" [1]
The "three most connected companies" through interconnecting directors are "3M (7 connections), Boeing (6 connections) and Amgen (6 connections)" ... "Other highly-connected companies include Walt Disney, Apple, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, IBM, and Procter & Gamble – each has five board members that also serve for other top 50 corporations." [2]
Here ya go (I knew I had seen it somewhere so I'm glad I managed to find it again). Here are some links to assorted sources about brands etc. It makes for fascinating reading imo
That first list is interesting because I recognize most of them as terrible products.
My mental model of brands was as a quality stamp, as in people would recognize a product from advertising but if they disliked the product then it wouldn’t help. But, I think there is a second effect in play. If you start with something of high quality that people consume regularly you can very slowly lower the quality without people noticing. Continue long enough and old brands are going to end up as lower quality.
I was recently looking at Tool brands and came across a similar article explaining how all the popular tool brands you know are owned by a handful of corporations.
Whenever I see that chart I feel gratified that I chose Makita when I was making the big battery decision a few years ago.
Personally, I lean to independent brands. I don't want my Milwaukee tools having all the same parts as the Ryobi line - makes me assume I'm being suckered into an identical tool that's way more expensive. Even if the Milwaukee is usually superior, I'm guessing some things just are exact copies with red paint. I'm the same way with say Patagonia over North Face - I'll always avoid VF Corp brands for something that's still building legacy, rather than profiting on historical credibility.
I guess the same is true with previous generation stuff. Abercrombie & Fitch, and Eddie Bauer used to be premier outdoor equipment companies with great down jackets and sleeping bags, fishing equipment, even shotguns. Now they're both brands representing clothes I don't want. Both brands sold and were aggregated with other companies in the late 1980s.
They're different. Rewriting history to say you're a founder is delusional. Giving yourself the title of "chief engineer" is akin to being the mascot of the company.
Depends on the country. In some, it's a certification that comes with responsibilities, in others it's just a job. In any case:
1) he hasn't got anything that comes close to an engineering qualification (no, dropping off a Ph.D. after a a B.Sc. is not enough);
2) his job does not involve anything like an engineer's job, which is to "invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the limitations imposed by practicality, regulation, safety and cost." [1]
He is very good at ordering people around, but there is no evidence that he did any of this at any point (though there is a lot of evidence that he got some underlings to do the boring work for him). Again, dumping a pile of money on someone to do it is not the same thing. I can respect that he did take some risks with his investments.
Even if you have an axe to grind and are frustrated by some people not considering software engineering as "proper engineering" (which is how I read your post, though Musk certainly is not a software engineer either), writing CSS for a living is closer to engineering than what Musk is doing.
> Depends on the country. In some, it's a certification that comes with responsibilities, in others it's just a job. In any case:
Yes, this was a rhetorical question.
Those countries that require a certification is not relevant to the discussion, because Elon Musk is operating out of America which does not require a certification to be a software engineer. In which case, by your definition, it's just a job or more specifically a job title. That's useless information because then people without a job title or don't care for one aren't engineers, and people who have the job title would automatically be an engineer. So if Elon Musk changes his job title to engineer instead of CEO, is he qualified now? Maybe he should prefix Senior to the title while he's at it.
> 1) he hasn't got anything that comes close to an engineering qualification (no, dropping off a Ph.D. after a a B.Sc. is not enough);
So people who don't have a Ph.D. aren't engineers?
> his job does not involve anything like an engineer's job, which is to "invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the limitations imposed by practicality, regulation, safety and cost."
Yes, he's a CEO. Are the CEOs of Google and Facebook still engineers if they aren't writing code? And what kind of complex system? Are organizations not complex systems?
> there is no evidence that he did any of this at any point
The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. If you're an engineer, you should understand this.
How do you think someone gets accepted into an engineering PhD, drop out or not, if they've never did any of this at any point in their life?
> In which case, by your definition, it's just a job or more specifically a job title.
Yes, a job title he bought, which is just as meaningful as the "Tesla founder" title he bought himself.
> So people who don't have a Ph.D. aren't engineers?
The issue is not the lack of a ph.D. It's the lack of anything beside a B.Sc.
> Are the CEOs of Google and Facebook still engineers if they aren't writing code?
Well, those who did an engineer's job are former engineers. If the status is tied to the job title as you imply, then no, a CEO is not an engineer.
> Are organizations not complex systems?
Not one you invent, design, analyze, build, or test. I mean, yes, you can stretch the meaning to the point that putting a motherboard in a PC case is engineering, but don't expect to be taken seriously. Same if you include all bureaucrats and politicians (and a country is vastly more complex than Tesla so they would have a better claim).
IANAL, but it more like the company has a legal obligation to tell that story and let him call himself a founder, but it's an out-of-court settlement, so we're free to call him an early investor and leave it at that. Now if Tesla to make a libel claim against the sources saying Eberhard and Tarpenning were the real founders, it can.
> "Still the owner of a considerable portion of GM stock, Durant began to purchase more shares in the company as his profits from Chevrolet allowed. In a final move to regain control, Durant offered GM stockholders five shares of Chevrolet stock for every one share of GM stock. Though GM stock prices were exorbitantly high, the market interest in Chevrolet made the five-for-one trade irresistible to GM shareholders. With the sale, concluded on May 2, 1918, Durant regained control of GM"
And then after this the DuPont Family effectively controlled GM for quite a while. They previously had a relationship because GM used DuPont paints.
----
As to the manufacturer family tree: things get significantly more complicated when you add joint ventures. Ford famously partnered with Mazda, Chrysler partnered with Mitsubishi, and GM partnered with Isuzu and Suzuki and even Toyota for a while (NUMMI). Nowadays GM and Honda have a few codevelopment projects; even the concept of what a joint venture means has significantly changed. My list is this comment is far from authoritative or exhaustive.
The epic "Diamondstar Motors" as I recall. Responsible for generations of kickass cars under different names. Conquest/Starion, Laser/Talon/Eclipse, Stealth/3000GT.
In addition, Chrysler had captive imports from Mitsubishi at least as far back as the 1971 Dodge Colt. The GM/Isuzu and Ford/Mazda relationships went back to the 1970s as well.
> As to the manufacturer family tree: things get significantly more complicated when you add joint ventures.
Yes, and even more complicated because some of those joint ventures where country-specific. For example, in the 80s (and early 90s) due to the economic crisis in Brazil and Argentina, Ford and Volkswagen created the joint venture Autolatina to join forces during the crisis. So both brands shared engines and released sight variations of the same cars.
Oh, the link between GM and leaded gasoline makes more sense in that context.
TEL had been identified chemically in the mid-19th century, but General Motors had discovered its effectiveness as an antiknock agent in 1921, after spending several years attempting to find an additive that was both highly effective and inexpensive.
Exactly. As it is labelled as owner tree, Porsche (the Porsche and Piesch families) owns VW and all its subsidiaries, esp. Audi.
But technically Audi owns the whole group. VW doesn't plan and design the engines, gearboxes and cars, Audi does. VW is more a logistics and SW company now, just with a big brand name, with the cheaper "Audis" labelled as VW.
Porsche designed the beetle (to the sketches of an Austrian painter). VW was founded for making beetles and they did that for decades. VW combined with Audi. Audi people designed the Golf that was the opposite of the beetle. It was a great success.
It'd be interesting to see this expanded into the secondary supply chains, and the primary factories, all of which may or may not be owned by the car corporations themselves.
These networks sprawl out pretty quickly, I imagine. Modern cars rely on microcontrollers and microprocessors, and without chip fabs that comes to a halt. They also require varying amounts of steel, aluminum, carbon fiber, other plastics and metals, and natural rubber.
Then there's the physical locations and the international ownership / leasing / agreement structures. For example, Rust Belt manufacturing of vehicles in the USA for the US market has mostly relocated to Mexico:
> "According to Forbes, about 80 percent of the cars manufactured in Mexico are exported globally, with about two-thirds of those exports going to the United States. In 2014, the industry comprised about $19 billion in investments. Production for that year was estimated to reach 3.2 million cars, double what it had been five years prior."
A network map of everything that went into a Mexican-made vehicle that was purchased in the USA would be highly complex, and if you then asked for an ownership map of all the shell companies, holding compenies, investors, primary owners etc. involved, the complexity would likely increase by a factor of ten.
Just tracking the global production and ownership of raw lithium and electric car battery manufacturing, for example, would be a fairly massive undertaking.
building out a massive BOM for all platforms would be next to impossible because it would require forcing OEMs to disclose their contracts with Tier 1 suppliers. I totally agree with you becasue that would be such a cool thing to do
While "ownership" is often interpreted in terms of value-flows and control, the model of Ikea's corporate structure indicates that actually modeling value-flows and control would be more helpful than using "ownership" as a proxy.
IKEA’s organizational structure might sound a bit confusing at first, but I looked into it to see how its business model works so that you could gain clarity on that.
Put it shortly, IKEA as a brand comprises two separate owners. INGKA Holding B.V. owns the IKEA Group, the holding the group.
At the same time that is held by the Stichting INGKA Foundation, which is the owner of the whole Group. IKEA Group is not the owner of the brand, which is managed by Inter IKEA Systems B.V., part of Inter IKEA B.V. that is the real owner of the IKEA Concept.
Thus, IKEA Group is a franchisee that pays 3% of royalties to Inter IKEA Systems.
Almost without a doubt, so is the company that made the device you are typing on. Likewise, the chair you are sitting on. If you are standing, there is a good chance one of the articles of clothing on you are "owned by China". If you are driving today, a vast majority of the parts in your car were made in China by Chinese companies. The brakes that you depend on were made in China, as were the spark plugs which ignite the fuel (most likely not domestic) that is transferred through the gears (of Chinese origin). The energy moving the Chinese made differential being transferred to the axels and eventually the tires, made in China, to the road, perhaps financed via Chinese loans.
But yeah, buying a Volvo is what keeps the CCP in power.
I only skimmed trough it, but the section about Polestar is wrong. It says that their racing division was renamed Lynk & Co. Lynk & Co is a different car brand focusing on a subscription sales model. Polestar's racing division was renamed Cyan Racing. Polestar is also partly owned by Geely, which of course also owns Volvo which owns part of Polestar...
Geely recently bought the mobile phone manufacturer Meizu.
> A lawsuit settlement agreed to by Eberhard and Tesla in September 2009 allows all five – Eberhard, Tarpenning, Wright, Musk, and Straubel – to call themselves co-founders.
Granted, he wasn't there to sign the articles of incorporation, but he joined very early.
Stellantis is like the new Step parent to a bunch of step children that were given up for adoption by their biological parents. Some premier brands but also a lot of second tier brands and smaller brands overall. I wonder if they can keep so many brands afloat. Over the last 20 years or so the larger MFGs have shed brands and consolidated.
They mostly keep releasing the same car under different brands, so the cost for brand differentiation with respect to actual car production is pretty much the same as if it was a single brand. They even add non-Stellantis brands to it, e.g. Toyota (for example, see their European range of small, medium and large vans).
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 252 ms ] thread(Memory could be off on time and which publication..)
https://www.businessinsider.com/10-companies-control-the-foo...
https://archive.is/7eOPd
https://www.webfx.com/blog/internet/the-6-companies-that-own...
But the thing that's super stark is how many marquees Stellantis have; I can't help but think that some consolidation and focusing of resources would be beneficial (and I'm well aware that plenty is shared already).
One one hand, we have the examples of those models that had the infamous FAP HDi 110 hp engine that gives a lot of problems, and Citroën's "Hydractive" (hydropneumatic) suspension was discarded due to the many problems they gave. We had a 1st gen Citroën C5, that had those two, and it needed to visit the garage every every 2 year to have some pretty costly repairs. Also, some of their newer cars with AdBlue have factory design problems in this system, and repairing that module is knowing that is gonna be relatively expensive and it's gone to fail in the future.
On the other hand, we had models like the Xsara, the 206, the 406, the C15, the Partner/Berlingo combo, and many others that were very reliable cars that rarely had problems.
https://www.citroen.it/modelli/berlingo/elettrico.html
https://www.fiat.it/e-doblo/e-doblo
https://www.opel.it/veicoli/gamma-combo/combo-e-life/panoram...
Chrysler has been taken over by different entities throughout the last 40 years but somehow managed to drag the new owner down every time. A bit like Rover before the Chinese takeover.
They still have a fair number of unique parts, they still have a fair amount of individual development and certification, they still have their own parts supply chains… these all add costs compared with literally having the same vehicle.
It's not that I see no reason to have multiple marques—after all, there is meaningful differentiation between the different VW ones, for example. But at some point you've got to stop and ask when you have too many.
edit: "after it will have brought" I guess
Tata is a huge conglomerate with businesses that apparently have nothing to do with each other.
Steel, Salt, coffee/tea, hotel chains, multiple airlines, IT, car companies, watches, financial companies, phone companies (?), jewellery, air conditioners, the list goes on.
(Whether any of their products are good is a different matter; it may or may not be — I don't really know.)
Tata motors in India has been pretty good over the last few years. They now make very desirable products designed for the Indian market — ie., spacious, efficient, practical cars with good enough performance, reliability, high scores in GNCAP crash tests, at a price which a lot of Indians can afford.
Tata cars probably won't win any races, but they have finally figured out the pulse of the Indian market.
Tata Group owns 70% of TCS, which is worth $200B.
Also this: > more than 70% of Tata Sons' dividends were generated by TCS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tata_Group
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tata_Consultancy_Services
TCS is around half the value of Tata.
Sometimes as I'm out and about I'll see old Ford-era Jaguars and I'm pleased that the company has independence to make its own vehicles.
Also was aware that Nissan and Renault cooperate, but didn't know there is also Mitshubishi with them. Btw. Adobe Acrobat logo would like to have a word.
Then just recently FCA and PSA formed Stellantis.
PSA and Fiat worked together previously, as their van the Fiat Ducato is basically the same as the vans from PSA group and the same as the Iveco Daily. They closely worked also together in other areas.
The small cars by Fiat was also partly joined development with Opel in the mid 1990. That relationship worked loosely for years, even while Opel still was part of GM.
Maybe someone has more information than me.
Their hobby is telling other countries that they suck because their economy is bad (partly because of NL being a tax haven).
while taxation in NL is lower than other countries like italy or French, it is not a tax haven, which is a precise definition that involves also border line legal activities.
what you maybe mean is that NL was able to lower taxes on companies because they understand their values, while other nations decided to go for a "tax the sh*t out of everything" and now they are surprised that companies are closing or moving to other nations.
the actual reasons for FCA and Mediaset to move to NL was more about legal : on average in italy you get a decision in 5 years, in NL on average it takes 6 months.
However, I was disappointed that they stopped making the Yeti.
They're unreliable where I'm from.
Otherwise, they make fabulous desirable cars.
My current car is a 1l 3-cylinder DSG Kamiq - which I am pretty happy with. Only complaint being the slow starting touch screen and the move away from physical buttons (e.g. for heated windscreen).
Over here it's only a matter of time before DSG inevitably fails.
Apparently, it tends to overheat when idling in traffic in D. This is also a problem in VW cars which uses the same gearbox.
It's a really hot climate where I live; I wonder if that's a factor.
The good thing is that Skoda/VW don't hesitate before replacing a failed gearbox (and then that one fails).
It's a lovely gearbox when it works.
I'm in Scotland, so it rarely gets above 20C and it quite often fairly damp - which presumably keeps the gearbox nice and cool :-)
Edit: We also very rarely sit in traffic, which might help as well.
There's a Wikipedia entry for DSG problems: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct-shift_gearbox#Problem...
My favorite are outdoor clothing companies which almost all tie-in to the same Chinese investment fund. Or how glasses companies all belong to that one French conglomerate.
They own: Ray-Ban, Oakley, Michael Kors, Varilux, Crizal, Transitions, LensCrafters, Clearly, EyeBuyDirect, FramesDirect.com, OPSM, Pearle Vision, Sears Optical, Sunglass Hut, Target Optical, Vision Direct, Vision Source, et al. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EssilorLuxottica
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxottica#Medical_managed_care
Consider that CostCo does the same thing and members are generally happy about it.
I guess you get good news every day!
So it is with markets. There are indistinct conditions that may exist for some time, and decay, and financial privacy, etc. So even given "perfect" observation of events, it is not fully transparent.
Nor would you want it, I argue. Once you as an individual are involved with markets and partners and committed relationships, some faceless bureacracy is tracking your parking spending? or more to the point, your ownership stakes? So we must re-invent public markets. Too much to change at once, and imperfect cooperation, so.. set a direction. "messy"
At least here in Norway, I can look up an organization and see all owners of that company last year. And press a button and it calculates the "true"/indirect owners up the chain as well.
I can also go the other way. Select a person, and see what they own through multiple layers of companies.
Is this a public service? Could you please give an url to know more about it? Thanks
This is a company doing extra stuff with the data, and providing some of it directly online. Here's a lookup of the company I work for: https://proff.no/aksjon%C3%A6rer/bedrift/oda-group-holding-a...
It lists owners, but as you can see it's mostly "Holding Companies". However, pressing "Indirekte eierskap og eiere" ("Indirect ownerships") one can see the true companies or persons behind those.
The "three most connected companies" through interconnecting directors are "3M (7 connections), Boeing (6 connections) and Amgen (6 connections)" ... "Other highly-connected companies include Walt Disney, Apple, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, IBM, and Procter & Gamble – each has five board members that also serve for other top 50 corporations." [2]
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/923c92/80_...
[2] https://www.visualcapitalist.com/50-largest-u-s-companies-bo...
"These 10 Companies Own Almost All of the Brands You Use" https://thehomestead.guru/10-companies-own-brands/
https://gizmodo.com/fascinating-graphic-shows-who-owns-all-t...
https://www.dividend.com/how-to-invest/9-companies-that-own-...
https://capitaloneshopping.com/blog/11-companies-that-own-ev...
https://www.webfx.com/blog/internet/the-6-companies-that-own...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/brendancoffey/2011/10/26/the-fo...
My mental model of brands was as a quality stamp, as in people would recognize a product from advertising but if they disliked the product then it wouldn’t help. But, I think there is a second effect in play. If you start with something of high quality that people consume regularly you can very slowly lower the quality without people noticing. Continue long enough and old brands are going to end up as lower quality.
“Brooks Brothers!”
https://toolguyd.com/tool-brands-corporate-affiliations/
Personally, I lean to independent brands. I don't want my Milwaukee tools having all the same parts as the Ryobi line - makes me assume I'm being suckered into an identical tool that's way more expensive. Even if the Milwaukee is usually superior, I'm guessing some things just are exact copies with red paint. I'm the same way with say Patagonia over North Face - I'll always avoid VF Corp brands for something that's still building legacy, rather than profiting on historical credibility.
I guess the same is true with previous generation stuff. Abercrombie & Fitch, and Eddie Bauer used to be premier outdoor equipment companies with great down jackets and sleeping bags, fishing equipment, even shotguns. Now they're both brands representing clothes I don't want. Both brands sold and were aggregated with other companies in the late 1980s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Bauer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abercrombie_%26_Fitch
What qualifies someone as an engineer? Math? What kind of math?
Building stuff? What kind of stuff?
Writing code? What languages count and what languages don’t? Does CSS count?
Or are you talking about some kind of academic certification or standardized exam?
It seems like you are basing someone’s engineering prowess based on their personal, social, political antics.
Depends on the country. In some, it's a certification that comes with responsibilities, in others it's just a job. In any case:
1) he hasn't got anything that comes close to an engineering qualification (no, dropping off a Ph.D. after a a B.Sc. is not enough);
2) his job does not involve anything like an engineer's job, which is to "invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the limitations imposed by practicality, regulation, safety and cost." [1]
He is very good at ordering people around, but there is no evidence that he did any of this at any point (though there is a lot of evidence that he got some underlings to do the boring work for him). Again, dumping a pile of money on someone to do it is not the same thing. I can respect that he did take some risks with his investments.
Even if you have an axe to grind and are frustrated by some people not considering software engineering as "proper engineering" (which is how I read your post, though Musk certainly is not a software engineer either), writing CSS for a living is closer to engineering than what Musk is doing.
[1] e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineer
Yes, this was a rhetorical question. Those countries that require a certification is not relevant to the discussion, because Elon Musk is operating out of America which does not require a certification to be a software engineer. In which case, by your definition, it's just a job or more specifically a job title. That's useless information because then people without a job title or don't care for one aren't engineers, and people who have the job title would automatically be an engineer. So if Elon Musk changes his job title to engineer instead of CEO, is he qualified now? Maybe he should prefix Senior to the title while he's at it.
> 1) he hasn't got anything that comes close to an engineering qualification (no, dropping off a Ph.D. after a a B.Sc. is not enough);
So people who don't have a Ph.D. aren't engineers?
> his job does not involve anything like an engineer's job, which is to "invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the limitations imposed by practicality, regulation, safety and cost."
Yes, he's a CEO. Are the CEOs of Google and Facebook still engineers if they aren't writing code? And what kind of complex system? Are organizations not complex systems?
> there is no evidence that he did any of this at any point
The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. If you're an engineer, you should understand this.
How do you think someone gets accepted into an engineering PhD, drop out or not, if they've never did any of this at any point in their life?
Yes, a job title he bought, which is just as meaningful as the "Tesla founder" title he bought himself.
> So people who don't have a Ph.D. aren't engineers?
The issue is not the lack of a ph.D. It's the lack of anything beside a B.Sc.
> Are the CEOs of Google and Facebook still engineers if they aren't writing code?
Well, those who did an engineer's job are former engineers. If the status is tied to the job title as you imply, then no, a CEO is not an engineer.
> Are organizations not complex systems?
Not one you invent, design, analyze, build, or test. I mean, yes, you can stretch the meaning to the point that putting a motherboard in a PC case is engineering, but don't expect to be taken seriously. Same if you include all bureaucrats and politicians (and a country is vastly more complex than Tesla so they would have a better claim).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaebol
Fun fact: Chevrolet kind of bought GM. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/gm-buys-chevrole...
> "Still the owner of a considerable portion of GM stock, Durant began to purchase more shares in the company as his profits from Chevrolet allowed. In a final move to regain control, Durant offered GM stockholders five shares of Chevrolet stock for every one share of GM stock. Though GM stock prices were exorbitantly high, the market interest in Chevrolet made the five-for-one trade irresistible to GM shareholders. With the sale, concluded on May 2, 1918, Durant regained control of GM"
And then after this the DuPont Family effectively controlled GM for quite a while. They previously had a relationship because GM used DuPont paints.
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As to the manufacturer family tree: things get significantly more complicated when you add joint ventures. Ford famously partnered with Mazda, Chrysler partnered with Mitsubishi, and GM partnered with Isuzu and Suzuki and even Toyota for a while (NUMMI). Nowadays GM and Honda have a few codevelopment projects; even the concept of what a joint venture means has significantly changed. My list is this comment is far from authoritative or exhaustive.
The epic "Diamondstar Motors" as I recall. Responsible for generations of kickass cars under different names. Conquest/Starion, Laser/Talon/Eclipse, Stealth/3000GT.
Yes, and even more complicated because some of those joint ventures where country-specific. For example, in the 80s (and early 90s) due to the economic crisis in Brazil and Argentina, Ford and Volkswagen created the joint venture Autolatina to join forces during the crisis. So both brands shared engines and released sight variations of the same cars.
TEL had been identified chemically in the mid-19th century, but General Motors had discovered its effectiveness as an antiknock agent in 1921, after spending several years attempting to find an additive that was both highly effective and inexpensive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead
Video treatment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV3dnLzthDA
Porsche cars are made by Porsche AG which is a subsidiary of Volkswagen AG - Porsche SE then holding a controlling stake in Volkswagen AG.
But technically Audi owns the whole group. VW doesn't plan and design the engines, gearboxes and cars, Audi does. VW is more a logistics and SW company now, just with a big brand name, with the cheaper "Audis" labelled as VW.
These networks sprawl out pretty quickly, I imagine. Modern cars rely on microcontrollers and microprocessors, and without chip fabs that comes to a halt. They also require varying amounts of steel, aluminum, carbon fiber, other plastics and metals, and natural rubber.
Then there's the physical locations and the international ownership / leasing / agreement structures. For example, Rust Belt manufacturing of vehicles in the USA for the US market has mostly relocated to Mexico:
https://napsintl.com/mexico-manufacturing-news/mexicos-auto-...
> "According to Forbes, about 80 percent of the cars manufactured in Mexico are exported globally, with about two-thirds of those exports going to the United States. In 2014, the industry comprised about $19 billion in investments. Production for that year was estimated to reach 3.2 million cars, double what it had been five years prior."
A network map of everything that went into a Mexican-made vehicle that was purchased in the USA would be highly complex, and if you then asked for an ownership map of all the shell companies, holding compenies, investors, primary owners etc. involved, the complexity would likely increase by a factor of ten.
Just tracking the global production and ownership of raw lithium and electric car battery manufacturing, for example, would be a fairly massive undertaking.
No employee in the Ferrari factory has a non-Stellantis car (Alfa Romeo or Maserati preferably)
So I think it should be clarified that Ferrari and Stellantis (specifically Fiat) are related
IKEA’s organizational structure might sound a bit confusing at first, but I looked into it to see how its business model works so that you could gain clarity on that.
Put it shortly, IKEA as a brand comprises two separate owners. INGKA Holding B.V. owns the IKEA Group, the holding the group.
At the same time that is held by the Stichting INGKA Foundation, which is the owner of the whole Group. IKEA Group is not the owner of the brand, which is managed by Inter IKEA Systems B.V., part of Inter IKEA B.V. that is the real owner of the IKEA Concept.
Thus, IKEA Group is a franchisee that pays 3% of royalties to Inter IKEA Systems.
https://fourweekmba.com/who-owns-ikea/
But yeah, buying a Volvo is what keeps the CCP in power.
Geely recently bought the mobile phone manufacturer Meizu.
> It was founded by former PayPal owner Elon Musk
Hah. Nope.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla,_Inc.#Founding_(2003%E2%...
Granted, he wasn't there to sign the articles of incorporation, but he joined very early.