It used to be said that if GM sneezed the American economy caught a cold. That mattered a lot, not just to the USA, but to the world economy.
In 1950 the US manufactured 8 million out of the world’s 10.6 million vehicles produced, as Europe made a slow recovery from the war. By 1960 a maintained US output of 8 million had fallen to under half world output, as the main western European countries established more substantial vehicle industries.
In 1970 world production had grown to nearly 30 million as Japan started to accelerate production, which exceeded 5 million.
By 1980 Japanese output of 11 million was double her 1970 production and bigger than US, with the world total approaching 40 million.
In the last twenty years the big change has come from the growth of the Chinese market.
By 2005 China was making 5.7 million vehicles within a world output of 66.5 million. Last year this had risen to 23.7 million Chinese vehicles in a world market of 89.7 million, illustrating that China accounted for the bulk of the growth in vehicle manufacture over the last decade. The automotive industry was badly hit by the Credit crunch of 2007-8.
Global output slumped to 61.7 million vehicles in 2009. It has made a decent recovery since, now standing 45% above those distressed levels.
The current industry pattern has China as the world’s largest manufacturer by a wide margin, followed by the USA.
The US industry has grown well since 2009. Japan is in third place with 9.8 million units in 2014, and Germany in fourth with 5.9 million.
Three of the four leading vehicle producers are substantial exporting countries which have run large trade surpluses in part by selling vehicles abroad, in part from producing them at home to keep down imports. The industry expects to see more growth in the next few years, at a slower pace than the quite rapid recovery from the slump of 2009.
