![[Valid Atom 1.0]](valid-atom.png "Validate my Atom 1.0 feed")
OPINIONS * USA - The Auto Industry
On the Road to Disaster or Recovery?Philadelphia,PA,USA -The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania/Knowledge@Wharton -Feb 7, 2007: -- Last May, Knowledge@Wharton spoke with John Paul MacDuffie, a management professor at Wharton and co-director of the International Motor Vehicle Program, about the state of the auto industry. It seems that not much has changed since then, except maybe for the worse. 2006 was the first year since 1991 that Detroit's Big Three were all in the red. Ford's situation seems direr than ever; Chrysler, which was profitable until mid 2006, is now preparing a restructuring plan to roll out this month; and Toyota has claimed the number-two spot in the U.S. auto market, just behind GM. Knowledge@Wharton asked MacDuffie whether he expects any surprises, or new strategies, in 2007... That said, I think if the established automakers neglect areas that U.S. consumers show they're very interested in, such as very low-cost -- say, under $10,000 -- vehicles, that creates an opening that the Chinese would be very pleased to fill. And of course, they may show up first -- not under their own brand names, even though they would dearly love to do that, but in producing vehicles for someone else to sell... And, already Chrysler has made much of the fact that they are looking for a Chinese partner to build a car, a Chrysler that they can sell in that very low-cost range. So that would be my bet. Looking at the history of the Koreans, the most recent country to really rise to prominence, I think China, India, and any new entrant will have to meet the quality expectations of American consumers... That's not going to be a fast process for anybody. Maybe the Chinese and Indian new entrants will achieve these quality standards more quickly than the Koreans did, but it will take them some time. And they can use their domestic market as more of a testing and learning ground for making those quality improvements, because in the short term their home market consumers won't be quite as demanding as U.S. consumers are...
Labels: autos news
posted by Unknown @ 5:32 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home