Nitsanbushi
Daihondu
Ismazdu
Subaruki
Mitsubishi, Isuzu, and Subaru are probably the ones to go under first.
That would leave Toyota, Lexis, Nissan, Infinti, Honda and Mazda. Of those Mazda is the smallest.
Toyota already dropped the Sion brand. I wonder about the Ininiti brand by Nissan
Not to mention the Koreans have put a serious dent in their market share.
Honda isn’t going anywhere. They typically don’t even view themselves as a car company per se, but an engine company, that also makes the parts that go around the engine. They are diversified.
Toyota is also fairly diversifed.
Subaru is a narrow focus, but also has a dedicated brand following.
Mazda would be my pick along with Mitsubishi, although Mitsubishi has other markets it plays on.
What intesting is that more and more, it seems like all these economists and analysts do very little actual “analysis”. It’s more like just throw enough stuff out there till something sticks and then shout, “See, I was right!”
Industrial consolidation in Japan is completely different from that in the US. Japanese industry has always been dominated by the vertically integrated keiritsu (industrial groups). That system makes it unlikely that, for example, Subaru (Fuji Heavy Industries) would merge with Mistubishi (Mitsubishi Heavy Industries) unless a common banking-manufacturing network exists.
What you get is either just a bunch of companies going out of business, as happened in their steel and electronics industries, or you get conglomerates of companies with related businesses, but with different markets, as in the Japanese banking system.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keiretsu
Buy a Mitsubhonzdazuxistoysan