Daewoo and Hyundai should consider building a joint-venture plant together in Europe, where overcapacity is a problem already.
These ambitious Koreans can avoid some costs if they share the overhead of a plant. Ford and VW have done it. Fiat and PSA have done it. Volvo and Mitsubishi have done it.
However, it is unlikely that Daewoo and Hyundai will do a JV.
Daewoo is already divorced from GM and from Honda. It has a hard time sharing. And maybe Hyundai is waiting for a Daewoo bankruptcy auction. Daewoo is very extended, with its recent investment in products and plants.
In Korea, the chaebols compete like schoolboys scrambling for the same seat. They all wanted to be carmakers.
Today Ssangyong is sitting on 10 years of losses, and Samsung is showing signs of retreat from its declared $6 billion assault on the auto industry. Daewoo and Hyundai would be smart to help each other in the foreign land of Europe, but they are more likely to try to trip each other up.