I remember the CEO of Intel (of "only the paranoid survive" fame) many years ago stating that his business was to invent new products that would immediately cannibalize his current products. Either Intel did it to itself, or someone else would. That was in the same business though and the new products were also highly profitable, due to declining production costs at scale. Even they are now struggling, having missed the move to mobile devices.
http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/05/02/476481238/left-behind-in-the-mobile-revolution-intel-struggles-to-innovateThe new product areas for the car manufacturers have a high probability of being less profitable, with possible lower sales through ride-sharing (especially with self-driving cars) and competitors that work more in an Amazon-style model of invest big and keep margins low (or even negative) for years to gain the network dominance before seeing real profits. Ride-share fleet buyers will also tend to get big bulk discounts, and will select for less expensive add-ons. In addition, EV's directly threaten the service business of the dealership network as they need much less maintenance. To add to the problem, the areas of electronics and batteries are not the ICE manufacturers core areas of competency.
In recent years the US market ICE car manufacturers have kept up demand through very cheap financing and extended loan terms (e.g. 7 year loan for a car, unheard of until quite recently), together with increased levels of leasing (reducing the monthly cost). Profits have gone up as more expensive upgrades, and loaded mini-SUV's, have increased as a share of sales. The auto-financing market may be faltering, which will provide a big hit to sales. That would force CEO's to focus on the very near term future. The ouster of the Ford CEO seems to be a good data point for this - should have been focused on getting out those new loaded ICE SUV models!
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-23/why-america-s-auto-debt-boom-fuels-bubble-talk-quicktake-q-aOther than a crash in the Nasdaq (possible, as it does look very "bubbly"), the ICE manufacturers may well be outmanoeuvred by their well funded competitors. The latter don't have the need to maintain sizeable legacy profits, have possible huge write-offs of ICE current capacity, nor a dealership network to keep happy.
Will be interesting to see if this gives a big opportunity for the Chinese manufacturers with their EV market there rapidly growing and lots of government support. If the purchasers are the ride-sharing companies, rather than consumers, there may be much less resistance to buying Chinese. The Chinese will also come in at the low end, given their focus on cheaper models, which may be a better match for the ride-sharing buyers.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-autoshow-china-electric-idUSKBN14V1H3https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/17/baidus-self-driving-cars-begin-public-test-in-wuzhen-china/The Chinese government may also have an advantage in being able to rapidly deploy the infrastructural and legal changes required - a relatively efficient autocratic bureaucracy does have some advantages!
http://knowledge.ckgsb.edu.cn/2016/11/21/technology/self-driving-cars-china/