The shifting global car industry
Monday, December 15, 2008 at 1:51AM ARTICLE: "South Could Gain as Detroit Struggles: Foreign Auto Makers, Drawn to Region's Nonunion Labor, Are Poised to Reshape U.S. Car Industry," by Paulo Prada and Dan Fitzpatrick, Wall Street Journal, 20 November 2008.
ARTICLE: "Facing a Slowdown, China's Auto Industry Presses for a Bailout From Beijing," by Keith Bradsher, New York Times, 19 November 2008.
The "South" here is actually the U.S. south, not Gap emerging markets. Foreign auto makers simply bypass Detroit's unions and build factories south of the Mason-Dixon line.
Point being: cars will be made in America, because America is about 14-15 million units sold every year. The BRIC + Next 11 are collectively hitting that annual mark right now, so no surprise, the companies looking to take advantage here hail from those countries.
Still, not all is peachy-kino for this crowd. The Chinese car industry, after years of 20% growth, now suddenly finds itself highly leveraged and facing short-term demand that is flat. So the Chinese firms ask Beijing for some of the same love Washington just gave Detroit ($25 B in loans for green research and the $25 B more Detroit seeks in short-term help).
Point being: there is plenty of competitive pressure in China's market--as in lots of foreign companies operating there too, to include GM and Ford, so it's not a one-sided story.
Just an incredibly shifting one.
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