> For a cost-productivity sake, you'd want one or two giant companies that each make one car, but under multiple brands. Then you rely on marketing to tell cust

> For a cost-productivity sake, you'd want one or two giant companies that each make one car, but under multiple brands. Then you rely on marketing to tell customers that there's a difference. This would drive down the overhead involved in many manufacturers making different models, and push the growth potential of automaker stock more towards consumer products in general. The common term for this is "badge engineering" and it doesn't really work long term for the simple reason that there are just too many car enthusiasts who figure out the truth pretty quickly. This problem is compounded by the fact that there is a large overlap between enthusiasts and people who buy more expensive cars.