1. Their profits are concentrated in pickups that have no pull else where for very contrived reasons- their eggs are in one precarious basket and for reprehensible reasons. 2. Going back to Johnson and made worse under Regan was a chicken tax tariff that sheltered big 3 pick ups from foreign competition with a 25% import tax. This was made worse by consumer tax credit and deductions for so called 'work trucks' (more of what amount to utterly backwards fossil fuel subsidies,) and moronic EPA policy that instead of penalizing heavier vehicles incentivized them to again subsidize more fossil fuel consumption and of course pump prices in the US are heavily subsidized- all of this pushed the big 3 to loss lead all their value into heavy inefficient really unnecessary vehicles. Note the difference in Semi-truck design between the US and the EU- more of the same-there is a ton of fat in that market too where you wouldn't expect it and Tesla will destroy them over it. This particular set of manipulation makes them totally vulnerable to physics based first principles product design. 3. These companies have a parasitic model where they cheapen their products and pad their products to enrich rent seekers who park unneeded capital at their firms. Just think about it, if they generate a bunch of profit that should be going to better value propositions and higher quality for their customers but its been going to collusion and shaking down their customers and complaining about air bags and seat belts for decades, they have been run by thieves. Tesla can totally disrupt the just by offering corrected margins. Even their scale doesn't help them because there has been so much perverse shunting. 4. Their products are a inferior value proposition so they've needed hucksters to push these products on communities, so their losses on dealers and on advertising is a massive weight around their neck. They also have their structural bankruptcy issue where they play games with credit to try to float themselves. 5. They have conditioned customers but when they face disruption customers will no longer trust them, it will dawn on customers that these firms have been dishonest and have been bilking them all these years. 6. Electric as Tesla just demonstrated with the Cybertruck has reached a value proposition in product design where ICE can no longer follow. That is to say electric is now cheaper and that is totally terminal for ICE. It would be like demanding a premium for Blackberry after iPhone arrived. Tesla decimated the Mercedes S, the BMW 7series (well really all of BMW series now) and the Audi(VW) A8 and they hit Porsche too. These were the German's equivalent of Trucks their most profitable most ego intensive most tech and brand image exposed products. It did this with products that were sometimes more expensive. With trucks in the US it will be hitting them with products that are less expensive but radically superior. To say they pad their products is a radical an understatement. What Tesla includes in its base Cybertruck Ford doubles the price of its base obsolete ICE products with and still comes up short. Ford won't be able to play these games anymore and that too will lead to dealer revolt. In both cases the public is becoming less sympathetic to them hiding behind jobs and trying to hold their employees hostage. We've heard of designed for manufacturing and engineering but they've been playing designed for programmed failure and designed to bilk customers for too long. They are not constructive market players but recalcitrant and regressive players. Ford is apparently genuinely attempting to change its ways but this is slow in coming. FCA may be changing its ways but it shouldn't be benefiting from the chicken tax anymore GM is recalcitrant. I anticipate they will try to license Tesla's truck technology, but just like GM's NUMMI experience where GM learned even with the same tech and at the same plant they couldn't match Toyota because they lack collaborative bottom up and lack culture the same will happen only worse.
