UNSOLD CARS AROUND THE WORLD

The Business Insider ^ | Feb. 27, 2009 | Barry Ritholtz

[Daffynition]

Nissan has announced plans to cut its Sunderland workforce by 1,200. Thousands of unsold cars are stored around the factory's test track

Honda is halting production at its Swindon plant in April and May, extending the two-month closure announced before Christmas to four months. Honda and Japanese rival Toyota are both cutting production in Japan and elsewhere. Pictured, Hondas await export at a pier in Tokyo

Earlier this week Jaguar Land Rover said 450 British jobs would go

The open car storage areas in Corby , Northamptonshire, are reaching full capacity

Imported cars stored at Sheerness open storage area awaiting delivery to dealers

Newly imported cars fill the 150-acre site at the Toyota distribution centre in Long Beach , California

The build-up of imported cars at the port of Newark , New Jersey

Stocks of Ford trucks in Detroit , Michigan

New cars jam the dockside in the port of Valencia in Spain

With many manufacturers on extended Christmas shutdown, the number of cars rolling off production lines in December fell 47.5% to just 53,823

Thousands of new cars are stored on the runway at the disused Upper Heyford airbase near Bicester, Oxfordshire, on December 18, 2008.

Sales of new cars in the UK have slumped to a 12-year-low and production of cars at Honda in Swindon has been halted for a unprecedented four-month period because of the collapse in global sales and represents the longest continuous halt in production at any UK car plant. The announcement comes on a day when the EU's Industry Commissioner Guenter Verheugen warned the outlook for the European car industry was 'brutal' and predicted not all European manufacturers would survive the crisis.

[martin_fierro]

Dullest. Racetrack. Ever.

[Daffynition]

One of their newer tracks in Oppama, Japan ...probably filled by now two.

[Hazwaste]

Wonder how much it costs to maintain that inventory, and whether it would make sense to sell at cost, esp since the recovery isn’t coming any time soon.

[Chet 99]

Yet, the roads are still full of cars and their drivers... look what happens when a critical mass of people all suddenly decide at once that they don’t “need” a brand new car every time the ash tray fills up on their old one..

[MeneMeneTekelUpharsin]

Things are shutting down REAL fast. Every time Obama opens his mouth and purposely says things to tank the economy, it has effect. Especially his comment broadcast today about removing tax breaks for corporations. He said some are gearing up for a fight and then said, "Well, so am I!". This President is unstable.

The Socialist are in full-blown takeover mode. My friend, who has an oilfield servicing business here in Texas, just lost a mountain of work as the oil company cut him off. He only got an e-mail saying the work was terminated...they didn't even call him. All of this is happening unbelievably fast. I feel sorry for people, actually.

[dynachrome]

How about this for a partial solution to draw down inventory:

Sell the cars at very low , give away prices, $5000 dollars?

“Brand new as is”. No warranty, no bells and whistles like free oil changes. First customers get the pick of accesory laden ones. It breaks, you have to pay to fix it.

(a lot of cheap used cars on the market piling up then, I guess.)

[Capt. Tom]

Just look at the cars in the local dealers lots.

I went to the doctor a month ago in Norwood Mass., and had trouble finding a parking space because a local car dealer (Boch)had the medical parking lot filled up with new Hondas.

I see this everywhere south of Boston, for many dealerships selling Honda, Nissan etc. - tom

[Greysard]

Sell the cars at very low , give away prices, $5000 dollars?

It will sell a few. However it will also cause problems:

1. They can be [rightly] accused of dumping.
2. They undermine their own base price, and it will be real hard later to raise the prices to where they used to be.
3. They take the loss right away, as opposed to having unsold inventory that is priced at $20K or so. It may be not sold for years, but if you stop production you may be able to live off of that stock and incur no expenses, as opposed to selling below the cost.
4. Many potential buyers really don't need a new car. I bought mine in June of 2005, and there is not a thing wrong with it. I only might consider upgrading to a new car if someone pays me $5-8K in fairy gold.

[Herakles]

Gee, anyone who has had to run his own business would realize that the prices have to be lowered to increase sales; but recently, CEOs have been talking about deterioration of “BRAND”, you know, that important concept dreamed up at some Harvard, Princeton, or Yale business school - you know, it's one of those abstruse concepts similar to “financial engineering” - for a definition of financial engineering refer to CDOs, Bear Sterns, Lehman, and other dinosaurs that don't exist any longer.

Large company CEOs have been acting like leftist university professors (see Penn State for definition) who would go to parties and talk about communism as if it were something only they could mentally grasp; except here, CEOs are talking about the “BRAND”.

Meanwhile, even the simplest of business owners know that neither communism or “Brand” work and both are meaningless in making a buck!

[blam]

I read someone say that the word 'depression' may not be severe enough to describe the conditions in Japan

Japan's Exports Collapse As Crisis Deepens In Asia

Japan's exports plunged 46pc in January from a year earlier in the latest sign of a catastrophic implosion of trade across Asia and the wider world. Sales fell 55pc to Britain, 65pc to Russia, and 67pc to Spain.

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Last Updated: 8:44AM GMT 26 Feb 2009

The ferocity of the slide adds to fears that the world's second biggest economy is tipping into a self-feeding spiral after contracting at annual rate of 12.7pc in the fourth quarter. A deflation 'mind set' has begun to gain a grip on the Japanese psyche once again. The government said land prices have fallen by an average 12pc in Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya since October.

"We don't sees any signs of an early recovery," said Takeshi Minami, chief economist for the Norinchukin institute. "Exports to Asia and especially China have crumbled just as badly as those to the US. That tells us that China's economy is most likely wilting."

The data confirms the picture emerging across the Pacific Rim that shipments to China from every country are in free-fall. It is hard to reconcile this with the optimism of commodity funds betting that a V-shaped rebound in Chinese industrial demand will soon lead to a fresh cycle of rising metal and oil prices. Much of the Chinese monetary stimulus over recent weeks appears to have leaked into speculation on the Shanghai bourse rather than stimulating consumption.

Pascal Lamy, the head of the World Trade Organisation, said yesterday in Tokyo that the global economy was "not even half-way through" the crisis. "Never before have we seen an economic shock of this magnitude. Japan is particularly vulnerable because trade is so central to the economy."

[snip]

[Daffynition]

Out doing errands this morning, I heard on the radio a car dealer offering to pay the balance of your loan [”no matter how large it is”] on your used car, if you buy new from them. I must confess, I wasn’t paying too close attention but it may have been a Nissan dealer.

Interesting times for bargains.

[Daffynition]

No one is feeling secure about anything, anymore.

A Pakistani, who has been here for 20 years, observed to me that he couldn’t believe how stupid voters were to elect Obama. He even quoted Reagan and expressed concern how he is going to have to pay for the mortgages of others who took out loans knowing they shouldn’t have....”...Now I have to pay my mortgage and someone elses’ too.”

[Daffynition]

Yep. Herb Chambers must be bleeding big-time.

[Pete-R-Bilt]

they're looking in a lot of places for stg...

http://www.businessinsider.com/toyota-storing-unsold-cars-on-cargo-ships-2009-2

[dynachrome]

Good points. I was thinking that no matter how good your storage parctices, at some point the cars become worthless due to deterioration

[Daffynition]

Wow! “Carpocalypse Now”