Tesla Note: Dealerships and Inventories

Mike Smitka One point in my critique of Tesla's flawed business strategy is that by engaging in direct sales it uses up precious cash. F...

Predicting SAAR, Deconstructing SAAR

Mike Smitka As an economist, I avoid the prediction game. I am also wary of reading much into a single month's data. What an economist c...

Book Review: Nick Kachman's Paint it red

Mike Smitka Nicholas Kachman, GM: Paint it Red. Paperback. Buena Vista, VA: Mariner Publishing, 2015. Businesses fail all the time, indee...

Clearing the Smoke on Tesla Deux

Mike Smitka While Tesla the car company continues to burn through cash, Elon Musk is touting a capital-hungry vision of integration of his m...

BEVs, AVs, Mobility 2.0: Disrupters?

Michael Smitka, Professor of Economics, Washington and Lee University Judge, Automotive News supplier PACE Awards The media are enamored of ...

When Detroit looked like Silicon Valley

Mike Smitka Autos are today a hi-tech industry; more on that in subsequent posts. The same was true circa 1900. A quick window on the contem...

Another fracking Saudi conspiracy story, or Chapter 11 is a marvelous invention

Mike Smitka Let me revisit a topic that matters a lot to the auto industry, what's happening in the energy sector. Frank Gaffney, of th...

Thank you Baby Boomers: The new norm is 60,000 jobs

Mike Smitka, Economics, Washington and Lee University A simple projection from pre-Great-Recession levels suggests we need 150,000 new jobs ...

Are our candidates Conservatives? Not Fiscally

Mike Smitka, Washington and Lee It's still the primary season, and positions are pitched toward those voters who participate in that pro...

NYFed's Bill Dudley Speech at VAE / VMI

Mike Smitka, Washington and Lee Tonight I had the opportunity – perhaps I should say privilege – of hearing Bill Dudley, President of the Fe...

"Kei" Cars in Japan: A "Galapagos" Sector?

Mike Smitka Under Japanese taxation, licensing and inspection systems there are 3 broad classes of cars (and light commercial vehicles): ful...

Peak Oil Revisited: Did I get anything right?

Mike Smitka, Economics, Washington and Lee University In 2014 I wrote on the arrival of peak oil. That now appears at best premature. So wha...

The Nature of Economic Knowledge: Divergent vs Convergent

Mike Smitka, Economics, Washington and Lee University Discourse in economics presumes that knowledge is convergent: more empirical research ...