I'm old enough to remember in the 70s or possibly early 80's when Alfa Romeo were selling the Arna, essentially a Nissan Cherry with the excellent Alfasud power train. Ironically it was rhe Nissan bit that turned put to be crap.
A lot of car companies risk catching a cold if they don't pull their finger out. Even Tesla are on questionable ground, with an ageing product range (and even shrinking product range as some models are excluded from certain countries/markets for various reasons) and profits that are OK in isolation but are a joke when compared to vast turnover. Their value is on paper by the manner in which the business side is structured and financed, and we all know what happens to paper when things heat up.
But all might not be bad. The Chinese economy is faltering as the government find it difficult to both subsidise industry and simultaneously extract enough to spend on world power stuff like their military.
But in a way it would almost be a shame if the legacy car manufacturers, including Tesla, survive because the Chinese cock thing up. They won't learn the lesson, and jn 10 or 15 years when the next major disruptor comes along, be it a rising economy in another country, new technology, or even a war, their demise will be even swifter than the slowly drawn out agony were seeing now.
