#7: The Fascinating Car Industry (June 20)

In automotive engineering class, I have been making a lot of fascinating discoveries about the world's automotive industry, and in this post I want to present some of the most interesting facts and figures I've learned over the first four days of class: 

Global map of the automotive industry:

  • Japan: 9 major automobile manufacturers: Honda, Isuzu, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Subaru, Suzuki, and Toyota.
  • United States: 3 major automobile manufacturers: Ford, General Motors, and Tesla.
  • Europe: 6 major automobile manufacturers: BMW, Volkswagen, Fiat, Stellantis, Renault, and Mercedes-Benz.
  • South Korea: 1 major automobile manufacturer: Hyundai (parent company of KIA).
This was really neat to see where all the players reside, and how many brands each of them own. Sometimes it's hard to know whether a brand is its own company or if it's owned by another--Chevrolet, Cadillac, GMC, Buick, and others are all owned by General Motors, for example. 

The Euro Car Segment system:
  • A-segment mini cars: Fiat 500
  • B-segment small cars: Volkswagen Polo
  • C-segment medium cars: Hyundai Elantra, Toyota Corolla
  • D-segment large cars: Toyota Camry, Lexus IS, Audi A4
  • E-segment executive cars: Chevrolet Impala, Tesla Model S, Toyota Avalon
  • F-segment luxury cars: Jaguar XJ, Audi A8
  • S-segment sports coupés: Chevrolet Camaro, Porsche Boxster
  • M-segment multi-purpose cars: Toyota Sienna
  • J-segment sports-utility cars: Toyota RAV4, Tesla Model Y, Chevrolet Suburban
I had never seen any car model size classification system before, and this is a really neat layout that shows the size progression: A-segments are the teeny little tin cans that putter around Italy, and J-segments are the Suburbans that get 10 miles to the gallon. 

Other cool facts:
  • All over the world there's one kind of car that is the most desired in almost every country, and the gap in demand for this car type over all others is expected to only grow, and grow significantly: SUVs. I had no idea the world loves SUVs so much. It's just as true in America as everywhere else, and I guess that's why almost every single car company has at least one SUV on the market even if it looks just like all the other companies' SUVs. 
  • One interesting exception to the SUV craze is Thailand, where they are obsessed with pickup trucks. In no other country in the world are pickup trucks in demand over other kinds of automobiles like in Thailand, where I guess there's lots of wood and brush to haul.
  • Tesla Cybertrucks started being delivered in November 2023, and at least 4,000 have been delivered it looks like. So maybe there's one or two in Kentucky? Keep an eye out: they're hard to miss.
  • Two of the biggest factors determining which countries automakers sell in are the Panama and Suez Canals. European companies will sell to Brazil but not Chile, and South Korean companies will sell to Chile but not Argentina, for example. Makes a lot of sense, but I hadn't thought about that factor before.
  • Most of the world, including the U.S in large part, is trying to stop producing any more new non-EV cars in the 2030s.

Next time you buy a car, see if you can get a deal on an SUV. Or maybe a deal by not buying an SUV. And in two or three decades it's looking like we'll all be looking for charging stations instead of Shells and BPs. Buc-cees will need a bunch of charging stations or we'll have a big problem.

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