Sign Of The Times: Camry Tops “Most American Vehicle” List
Jim Higgins
http://tinyurl.com/mhqkkl
Cars.com tackles the tough question of domestic content in its latest
�American Made Index,� and comes away with a surprising result: Toyota�s
Camry is the most �American� car on the market. Of course, making these
distinctions in a global industry is fraught with difficulty. Though
percentage of domestic parts content is tracked by the NHTSA for
American Automobile Labeling Act compliance (PDF), those numbers count
US and Canadian parts as being �domestic�. So Cars.com has created its
own list which requires US assembly, at least 75 percent US-sourced
parts content, and factors in sales numbers because �they correlate to
the number of U.S. autoworkers employed to build any given model and to
build the parts that go into those same cars.� Taking out vehicles that
are being canceled with no clear replacement, the following vehicles
make up their top ten �most American� automobiles.
1. Toyota Camry (Georgetown, KY; Lafayette, IN)
2. Ford F-150 (Dearborn, MI; Claycomo, MO)
3. Chevrolet Malibu (Kansas City, KS)
4. Honda Odyssey (Lincoln, AL)
5. Chevrolet Silverado 1500 (Fort Wayne, IN)
6. Toyota Sienna (Princeton, IN)
7. Toyota Tundra (San Antonio, TX)
8. GMC Sierra 1500 (Fort Wayne, IN)
9. Ford Taurus (Chicago, IL)
10. Toyota Venza (Georgetown, KY)
In short, only half of the top ten �most American� vehicles are actually
made the Detroit automakers (and only one-third are made by the
taxpayer-owned firms). Of course, a lot of that has to do with Detroit�s
tanking sales numbers, as well as GM�s slashing of its Pontiac line
(disqualifying its vehicles on the �no obvious replacement� front.
Still, former AMI perennials like the Chevy Cobalt have fallen off the
list because their percentage of domestic parts content has actually
fallen. While none of this is conclusive in terms of measuring impacts
on the American economy, it�s another interesting look at an industry
that is far too complicated to measure in terms of pure nationality.
--
Civis Romanus Sum
Dori A Schmetterling
The biggest, and possibly the easiest to determine, 'domestic' element is
the sales & marketing cost.
DAS
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"Jim Higgins" <gordi...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:P_mdna87pNH85M_X...@posted.eaglecomputertechnology...
[...]
While none of this is conclusive in terms of measuring impacts
> on the American economy, it�s another interesting look at an industry that
MoPar Man
> So Cars.com has created its own list which requires US assembly,
> at least 75 percent US-sourced parts content, and factors in
> sales numbers because �they correlate to the number of U.S.
> autoworkers employed to build any given model
Would it kill them to have included Canadian-sourced parts, Canadian
assembled cars, and Canadian sales numbers?
Canadians buy US-built cars too.
I bet including Canada would dramatically change those numbers, and
probably mean that some Chrysler vehicles would appear in that list.
I was going to copy this post as an e-mail to thetruthaboutcars.com but
I could find no editorial e-mail address (or any e-mail address) for
them or for Edward Niedermeyer on their web site.
Ted Mittelstaedt
"MoPar Man" <Mo...@Man.com> wrote in message
news:4A5349A3...@Man.com...
>
> I bet including Canada would dramatically change those numbers, and
> probably mean that some Chrysler vehicles would appear in that list.
>
> I was going to copy this post as an e-mail to thetruthaboutcars.com but
> I could find no editorial e-mail address (or any e-mail address) for
> them or for Edward Niedermeyer on their web site.
Give it up, the operative sentence was at the end:
"... it's another interesting look at an industry
that is far too complicated to measure in terms of pure nationality.."
In other words, the author of the article started out with this statement as
a supposition and set about adjusting his query parameters to arrive
at his desired result.
The fact is that this is a false supposition. Where nationality matters is
jobs. A nation is failing it's citizens if it cannot provide them with an
economy
where they can all work and bring home money to use to put food on the
table. If the national government cannot do that, there's no point in
having it.
Conservatives like to claim that the only job of the national government is
defense, but that's BS. The first priority of a national government is to
manage the country's economy. Defense is a second priority, and you cannot
have a good defence if the country's economy cannot fund it.
It's got to the point that I think most Americans would be better off if the
US Government were to simply disappear and the US were to accept the
government of Japan as it's legitimate government. At least the Japanese
government cares about having it's citizens working, the US government has
ceased caring about that a long time ago.
Most US citizenry have basically already done this, just not admitted it.
Look around your desk and how much stuff do you see is made by
Japanese-owned firms, and Chinese-owned firms, in Japan and in China.
Now compare that to how much stuff is made by American-owned firms
in the US. Enough said.
Ted
Dori A Schmetterling
Navel-gazing lives!
How about considering how many cars/products are made outside the US by US
companies.
DAS
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"Ted Mittelstaedt" <te...@toybox.placo.com> wrote in message
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[...]
Some O
"Dori A Schmetterling" <nob...@spam.co.uk> wrote:
> My, my, we are having difficulty understanding international business.
> Navel-gazing lives!
>
> How about considering how many cars/products are made outside the US by US
> companies.
The problem is without manufacturing in the USA, jobs are becoming more
scarce. How long can a countries people live well with just service
industry jobs?
Yes next there will be cars from China, using our technology.
Then Japanese cars built in NAFTA will become too expensive.
Perhaps the, too expensive for me, BMWs and Mercedes sold in the USA
will still be built in the USA.
Dori A Schmetterling
in the UK -- though there are now some signs of trend reversal -- but the
answer isn't in moaning, erecting barriers and subsidising.
Germany and Japan have larger manufacturing sectors but are also having to
deal with becoming uncompetitive. Like elswhere the companies transplant
manufacturing or move up the technological ladder.
Think of computers. AFAIK largely US-invented or developed technology (even
if Alan Turing was British)... but hardware manufactured in Taiwan or
Malaysia, or wherever. Would it have reached the masses so quickly, or
would the cost of ever-increasing computing power have come down so quickly
if the manufacturers had played the nationalistic game?
Anyway, countries don't maintain econonomic and political leadership for
ever. Hard to imagine that 100 years ago Britain was top dog and the US was
nowhere. Hundreds of years ago science flourished in Arab lands, now it's
'buried'.
The US has had -- and is still having -- a very good run!
DAS
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