Global downturn hits hard – pictures
March 20, 2009 by Karl Peskett
They say a picture tells a thousand words. Here are just three powerful pictorial examples of the credit crunch closing in, in the United States.
San Rafael Chevrolet Saab Hummer Hyundai closed its doors recently, leaving dozens of employees out of work. Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
In Newark, California, a sign informs readers that the Fremont Pontiac GMC dealership will never re-open. Photo: AP Photo/Paul Sakuma
At the Atlantic Marine Terminal at the port of Baltimore, Maryland, Dodge SUVs sit idle, unsold. More than 57,000 cars are currently sitting at the port, waiting for buyers. Maryland recently paid US$5.26 million for almost 10 hectares of additional car storage space near the port, freeing space for more cargo, as these cars just aren’t moving. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Click on the pictures for higher resolution versions.
Source: Boston.com
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wow, it still amazes me how quickly the economic climate changed. A year ago people were still musing that the ‘boom’ would never end. Of course, it was always going to slow down, but nobody expected it to come to the grinding halt it has done in such a short space of time.
well when you have Wall St manufacturing boom conditions, then it gets to a point of unsustainable and artificial growth based on debt, then this grinding halt is what happens.
The thing that strikes me about the third photo is the huge range of colours in this shot – ie you can have any colour you want as long as it is either white or beige.
These photo’s only show part of the story, I have seen some photos that clearly show that the major problem has been a growing over supply!! When all this washes out I can manufacturers going back to a build to order regime. Having to wait for a new car has become almost criminal in the minds of the buying public at present, yet they are all to happy to wait three manths for a bedroom suite??? This market is going to change a lot of things.
Totally agree frontman. Manufacturers have been over producing for years. Manufacturers & Dealers bumping up sales by pre-registering then selling at massive discounts to kid themselves there’s a market the result has been high depreciation of secondhand cars which in turn has pushed folk away from wanting to blow their cash.
I see used car dealers here reducing numbers of cars on their forecourts now.
Big fat American greed, we want it all and we want it now and pay me top dollar attitude. No wonder they are the worlds biggest consumers. Bleed everything untill it is dry culture is what lead to the current crises. Maybe we should aspire to be a bit more conservative.
“wow, it still amazes me how quickly the economic climate changed”
True…What amazes me, is its deemed the credit crunch. But some of the big financial/insurance institutions like AIG are bouncing back very quickly. But the car industry looks to suffer permanent damage from this.
Yep, agree with frontman also.
Sometimes it takes a crisis to remind people how we should be behaving.
GM and Ford and other “PUSH production” are gone bankcrupt due to the crisis.
I’ve studied it and currently working in it.
The manufacturing industry – engineering/automotive especially.
Companies that based their production on “Push” system which is biased towards high volume production due to “forecasting” and/or its “cost effective” are just asking for this trouble.
Toyota, Honda, and other japanese companies/european who opted for JIT or in other alias “Toyota’s production system” which is “PULL”, the damage isnt as crippling… it still does damage because the demand or “PULL” is not as high, but it avoids or prevents over stocking. Of course most dealers have to “stock” some products BUT with Toyota’s method it is kept at the very minimum basically just enough to cover “mistakes” or “urgent” replacements.
Still the crisis which basically reduced demand to 0 hurts Toyota and other PULL manufacturers.
But for PUSH manufacturers, they have all these stocks that are “DEBT”. Hence you see dealers giving them away with 0 profit just to reduce DEBT.
Also, just a note, in the States, even Toyota suffered significant over stock. because Toyota America basically “stretched” the “stock” policy that Toyota have and kinda produced more vehicles than necessary hence you can find many many photos of car lots with Toyota SUVs waiting. Still though not as high as GM or Ford…
USA…. I agree with the person above said, they are the world’s highest consumer of “goods” thats why you see marketing people there get paid millions to convince people what to buy next because the market is just like that.
But in all fairness… a Subaru WRX STi 2008 Model brand new retails for 30K USD…… here its over 72K drive away.
So wouldnt’ you indugle yourself with such “toys” at those prices.
Actually Lucas, Toyota (No I am not brand bashing) but I have photos of over 150 acres of Toyotas in California. Honda itself has slowed production (and Australian imports by 1/4) to assist in reducing their stock holdings. It is NOT the sole problem of the D3. If CA was to contact me I would only be too happy to forward some of these photos to share with everyone.
The best thing that could happen to America, is a collapse of its currency. This will benefit the US manufacturers and promote the US to become ‘producers’ rather than consumers. The best way out of this ‘crisis’.
Obama knows this and will do what it takes so that the BIG 3 don’t fall (and to save many other sectors)… the liquidity required to save them in whatever form will be enormous and will put massive pressure on their currency which in turn will apply higher values on imported consumer items.
Lukaas, so why then do Toyota Australia have such a huge overstock problem at the moment, even though they have been PUSHing early delivery of fleet orders: “Please take it now, instead of when you ordered it for”
Here some more I have read over the last week.
http://www.autoblog.com/2009/0.....ld-hondas/
http://www.nationalpost.com/sc.....id=1351293
Got to love the name of the ship they are storing them on. hahaha
Lukaas,
I believe toyota also fits into the same “pull” part of your explanation as the other D3.
read some back ground on how toyota got to the top of the sales tree. It was very much push, push, push.
Toyota is one of the most vocal predictor of sales. they also set out to take the sales hat off of GM. they did that by push push push.
One of the biggest ways they got higher with the sales was to start pushing more and more fleet deals. they pushed for and got fleet territory that was once predominately ford and holdens.
I am trying to find a silver line in this cloud.
Will cars be dirt cheap shortly in Australia? If so I will hold my money for some time yet. I have heard that in UK, Kia brought ‘buy one get one free’, while some other companies have practically selling in half price.
While the first 2 pictures may be genuine, the last is definitely not real. It is simply a layering of lots of jeeps. Its very easy to pick, the perspectives are not correct, the vehicles are too close to each other/overlap. and there is a big change in perspective/size of the vehicles ot the top of the shot/horizon.
Another case of the media (Boston.com?) blowing things out of proportion.
The current reduction of vehicle sales worldwide occured faster than ANY auto company could respond without having overstocks we currently see.
Lukaas,
Ford is now operating so production does match real demand.
It’s not just the japanese who operate this way.
Actually ADAM, the current climate has been foreseen by several for the past 3 years (at least we’ve been talking about it for that long). Hence the reason VWAG has been able to cope so well, and Mr Mullaly started the major restructure and Finance in 2006. Remember how many of the faithful hailed him down about it. That’s the biggest problem, some manufacturers won’t have learnt from this. :-(
Ravith, the Question you ask is the same as anyone asks at the stockmarket crash, how much cheaper will it get??
Honda havn’t made a car at Swindon plant (UK) for 4 months now apparently.
Poor me! I was dreaming of driving BMW at Hyundai’s price.
never was a fan of general motors. i want a 135i