Cars Case Study

• In 1954 the manufacturing was focus in Europe, North America and Japan
• The leading importer is the USA
• The leading exporter in Germany 
• Top Car Produced 

  1. America
  2. China
  3. Japan
  4. Germany
• Germany’s car brand Volkswagen, has 502,000 employees worldwide,
• Manufacturing took of due to mass production and consumption created by the for company called Fordism
• Fordism- Henry Ford introduced assembly line which increased productivity and efficiency
• Mass Production - The ability to produce large quantities of goods quickly and cheaply
• Mass Consumption – People have more money to spend on consumer goods
• Increased demand for cars led to more factories being built in Detroit (USA)
• Detroit was known as ‘Motor City’ because it had so many car manufacturers there.
• Cars were seen as status symbols and people wanted them to show off their wealth
• The first cars were made in Germany in 1896.
• Positives of mass production: 

  Affordable for the average 

  Lowered the cars unit price

  Helped increase worker wages 
• Henry Ford introduced the moving assembly line which allowed one person to do one job repeatedly throughout the day. This meant that he could produce more cars at lower costs.
• Currently the world production of cars  dominated by huge TNCS based in USA, Germany and Japan and South Korea
• The main importers and exporters of cars are Developed countries such as Europe and USA and Emerging economies such as India, China, Middle Eastern countries
• China and India are major producers of cars, but do not export, significant amounts
• Germany is a major producer of cars and is known for cars like BMW, Mercedes Benz, Porsche and Audi.
• Germany has 35.6% share of the EU 
• In 2015, the automotive industry is worth and turned over £71 billion
• • Employs more than 800,000 including 169,000 whom are directly involved in manufacturing
• • UK car manufacturing industry is accelerating due to billions of pounds of investment which committed over a course of a couple years 
• • the current momentum could be undetermined if the government fails to negotiate a free trade deal between Britain and the EU.
• 78% were exported from the UK
• • After WW2, many of the factories making these cars had been severely damaged due to the war and therefore the Automobile industry went into debt
• The automobile industry began in 1980s , ever since the US has grown into the largest automobile producer but has been overtaken by Japan
• Ford had recently planned to spend $1.6 billion on a factory to manufacture the Focus small model in Mexico;

  However, Trump has announced that plans will be cancelled if production did not move to China instead of Mexico.