Roger Carr sent me this video that makes for quite compelling viewing. It graphically illustrates the changing status of various countries in terms of their total motor vehicle output. I do have a few minor quibbles with it, though.
I’m not quite sure of the creator’s methodology. First off, he calls it “Top Ten Car Producing Countries” but he includes all motor vehicles including trucks of all sizes, buses, etc. So it’s really all motor vehicles, which tend to really inflate China’s numbers given the large amounts of vehicles in classes outside the traditional car market. Also, it doesn’t actually ever show the correct complete number for any given year. It appears to start counting again from some predetermined place, but it never finishes the total for the year. A key example is 2009, when total US motor vehicle production collapsed to 5.7 million. You’d never know that from the video, as the counter is working downwards for 2009, but only gets to 8.5 million, and then keeps going downwards until it hits a trough at 7.7 M in 2010, which is correct for that year. In other words, the correct number for any given year may never be achieved by the counter, but it certainly gives a clear picture of the trend line and any country’s relative position.
My biggest surprise? Japan’s rise to the #1 position between about 1975 and 1990. I had forgotten that they actually surpassed the US in those years.
My quibble with the creator’s methodology is that the video includes “Germany” for the entire time frame, but of course for over half of that time Germany was two countries. Is the creator including both East German and West German car production for the pre-reunification years?
Good point, although East Germany’s output undoubtedly wouldn’t make too much of a difference, either way.
Between Trabant and Wartburg, the East Germans produced a couple hundred thousand cars a year in the ’70s and ’80s.
It would be interesting to see one based on factory ownership.
Some factories were joint ventures, but still could be split based on percentage of ownership.
Very interesting.
Admittedly this is peripheral, but I read a few years ago that (at least then) Slovakia, of all countries, was producing not the most cars on an absolute basis (of course), but the most cars per capita. Various western European automakers have built plants in Slovakia, which has a population of ~5.5m.
I don’t know how many final assembly plants are in Slovakia, but I do believe that Hungary, Poland and Slovakia produce a huge percentage of the parts that make up a modern ‘German’ car. Or at least they did before China flexed their geopolitical muscles.
Glad you found interesting, Paul
My major observation was the increase in US volume in the 1990s and early 2000s – I am correct to infer that this is Japanese, Korean and German establishing operations in the US rather than the Big 3 increasing their volumes?
And don’t overlook Canada – production per head of population is surely relatively high.
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Yes. Large investment in US based plants by the Japanese.
Canada? It was until more recent years when production by US manufacturers has been drastically cut there.
The self-destruction of the UK motor industry is the saddest story for me on here. They were so well positioned, with well-established markets etc, and they even had some very decent cars. And then they blew it in so many ways. Complacency, disconnected management, poor labour relations – they just got everything wrong.
Could be worse though, it could be a graph of the UK motorcycle industry post-war. Now that would be really depressing.
Though I might not agree with you about the UK having some very decent cars and that the problem with labor was merely relations; the episode of “Grand Tour” where they discuss the death of the Ford family car raises another factor in the death of the UK auto industry. The Labour Party measured their success in the number of people they could get out of cars and onto buses. Punitively high income taxation created the car allowance model, and closing the loophole shredded a market that the UK auto industry had gotten fat and lazy relying on. Destroying the UK auto industry decades before EV mandates destroy the rest of western civilization is the result of legislative success, if you’re the sort that sees the existence of people as a problem.
The death of the British motor industry is a complex subject, and while you’ve made some points that may be valid, there’s more to it than that. End of empire is significant of course, as previously captive export markets chose to go their own way and buy cars made elsewhere. And other factors, such as the “sudden” emergence of the Japanese car industry.
Ultimately though, all blame must go on the management. They failed to predict or react to changing markets, they alienated their workforce and failed to manage their militant unions, they under-invested and they failed to deal with their quality control issues once reliable Japanese cars started to eat their lunch. It’s a story of complacency and incompetence.
Not sure I get your point about “EV mandates” destroying western civilization? There is undoubtedly an EV revolution happening, but that is only partially being driven by legislation, and even then, a lot of the legislation is actually reactive. Reading Jim Klein’s reviews here should clarify that actually EVs are increasingly a better product for a proportion of the market, and rather than people being the problem, it’s people that are choosing them. To dismiss EVs right now is rather too reminiscent of the attitude of British motor industry management in the 60s and 70s.
Don’t bother to even respond to his flaming right-wing conspiracy theories. It’s a total waste of time.
Aside from the absolute number of cars built in the UK, the only British-owned automakers are the boutique ones, such as Caterham. I was going to cite Morgan as an example, but some quick online research says the Italian investment group Investindustrial owns a majority stake in them.
The British motor industy died because of excessive profit taking, lack of investment and complacency induced by a captive Commonwealth market. Exactly the same reasons caused the demise of the US industry, except there it has the market of N.America. The top rate of income tax between 1950 and 1980 mostly hovered around 80%, the same as the US. The poor labour relations were a symptom, not a cause.
Triumph are doing better than Harley Davidson these days.
I think it was 1980 when Japan surpassed the USA as production passenger car producer of the world; isn’t that what lead to the voluntary restrictions the following year?
Looking back, those restrictions literally were a red flag that the big 3 knew their products were lacking. And it basically made Japanese cars indifferent to depreciation in the insane interest rates of the early ‘80’s… So genius (not).
Re the Mexican numbers. How many are for local consumption compared to sending them to the USA?
What were Japan’s big export markets before US and European volumes grew starting around 1968-70? I know it’s a fairly populous country so the domestic market is sizable, but the growth starting the mid sixties surprised me. Africa, and other Asian countries?
Their domestic market grew extremely rapidly in the 60s and 70s. Exports to Africa would have been negligible back then. Some to other Asian markets, and Australia. But the big drivers of growth were the domestic market and the US. Exports to European markets didn’t really begin until the ’70s, and slowly at first.
The Japanese domestic market turned over every three years while they were building their auto industry, and the cars that weren’t scrapped were exported to ‘developing markets’ that never quite develop. Places like central America and Africa always seemed to have lots of late model Japanese used cars. Now Japan’s fleet is climbing in age annually, suggesting that registering a four year old car is no longer onerously expensive.
Australia would have been producing more vehicles than Japan and India in the 1950s. I can’t be bothered doing any research right now but Holden alone must have hit six figures somewhere in the mid to late 50s.