Grant Thornton: Transplants Will Out-Produce Detroit in 2012
“A new order is emerging where the Detroit companies may no longer be the volume leaders in their home market,” says GT’s Kim Rodriguez in a release [via PRNewswire] which spins the news as an opportunity for US suppliers. The upshot is that even if the Detroit firms return to profitability by 2012 (hello, Vegas?), suppliers will have to diversify because expansion in US production is coming from the transplants. VW and BMW plan on doubling their US production capacity in that timeframe (to 1m units) while Toyota, Honda, Nissan and Hyundai will collectively add another million units. GT expects other firms to add another 200,000 units of production to the US mix by 2012 as well. Meanwhile, Chrysler and GM are shuttering plants and shedding capacity while taxpayers bail them out in the name of the “American automotive industry and manufacturing base.”
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Watch it and send it to your friends. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeYscnFpEyA We need to get back to a middle class designed country.
Wouldnt it be nice if GM or Chrysler could be allowed to do the same in Japan or South Korea?
VW could take off with a hot product or two and a 10yr/100k mi warranty. They could also pick up some of the better dealers that were dropped by GM and Chrysler. I doubt that they could get to 1M; roughly 10% of the US market. They could still grow their share a good 2-4%.
I can see VW picking up some sales when/if the general public ever realizes that their TDI cars are a viable alternative to the Prius for the MPG-conscious.