Former Chrysler and DaimlerChrysler executive Thomas Stallkamp has told a conference of automotive industry analysts that he firmly believes that greater collaboration is the way forward for the auto industry.
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Speaking this week at the Society of Automotive Analysts (SAA) annual outlook conference in Detroit, Stallkamp said he was encouraged by growing collaboration between GM and DaimlerChrysler on hybrid technology and said that the auto industry, especially in the US, would be forced to move towards greater collaboration to lower costs and reduce risk.
“The recent announcement that GM and DCX will work jointly on a specific hybrid technology is encouraging news. Both companies have a history of trying to do everything themselves, to the exclusion of other companies,”said Stallkamp in a keynote speech.
“In this case, they were both concentrating on hydrogen fuel cell hybrids but were beaten to the market place by the Toyota and Honda systems that use smaller gas and electric motors. Each will continue to work on their own technology, as GM showed in its concept car, the Sequel, introduced on Sunday here at the show.
“But the GM/DCX announcement showed that they realized collaboration on a different technology could help cover their bets on the way the future will unfold. In this way, each company swallowed their pride and took an action that may protect them both. Now they each need to do it with their suppliers.
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By GlobalData“Partnering is the way of the future in any high capital industry. Look at the way the pharmaceutical industry works on joint development with smaller high-tech companies. In computers, Dell assigns development responsibility to sub suppliers for critical components like hard drives and DVD readers. Collaboration is a practice that has been proven to work, as in the Chrysler SCORE case, and is being practiced today by leading companies. I feel optimistic that the auto industry, especially here in the US, will soon be forced to move to a greater degree of collaboration and quickly.”
