Interesting point about the suppliers of auto parts. I hadn't thought about that until I read this.
The key here, I belive, is the same basic strategy that all businesses have to engage in right now: How to survive until the economy take the eventual upswing. Targets have to be reassessed and belts have to be tightened. There is revenue out there, albeit less. In running my business, I have to look forward enough to see where the revenue potential exists. Now that we are going to have a Democrat based government, my target may shift (to some degree) away from the business sector and towards government. That remains to be seen. My job is to be pereceptive enough to see it and flexible enough to effectively change targets when called for.
There are 3 basic paths of revenue: Low volume high price ticket sales (typically high profit), high volume low price ticket sales (typically low profit), and combination of the two. Auto companies (along with everyone else) need to reassess their revenue stream and adjust so that when one stream starts to shrink, shift the load balance to the other stream.