Forbes columnist Dan Lienert has given his predictions for 2006 for your enjoyment or horror.
He’s seeing broken unions littering 2006 as the domestic automakers follow the airlines in either slowly or
quickly eroding their contracts at the bargaining table.
A new war between automakers is brewing. This
time, though, the combatants are not domestic versus imports, but Korean versus Japanese with Toyota nervously looking
over its shoulder as Hyundai moves upscale in quality but not in price (and keeps its famous warranty). And Honda will
be in trouble in 2006 as buyers abandon the Element and CR-V.
Finally, in a weird form of copycat, Japanese
automakers will be increasing incentives on their vehicles with their trucks on the front lines for deep cash bonuses.
(And we won’t point out that such vehicles are the cash cows for the domestic manufactures.)
Then
there’s the Chinese….
See here for Dan and his colleagues’ 2005
predictions. Were they on the money or need another visit with the gypsy and her crystal ball again?