American car makers . On the edge

American carmakers. On the edge
Nov 13th 2008
From The Economist print edition
After the bank bail-out, it is now Detroit’s carmakers who are pleading for help

IF NOTHING else, the revelation by General Motors (GM) on November 7th that it is in danger of running out of cash before the end of the year has concentrated minds. The reaction within the embattled car industry, and in Washington, DC, has been the same: we knew it was bad, but we did not know it was that bad. Ford is in a similar position, although its cash should hold out for a few months longer.
As for Chrysler, the smallest and weakest of Detroit’s Big Three, the precise state of its finances are harder to gauge because it is privately held. But the increasingly desperate attempts by Cerberus Capital Management, the private-equity firm that owns 80% of Chrysler, to offload some or all of it to another carmaker (GM said on November 7th that it had walked away from such a deal) suggest that its future as an independent entity is all but over.