The not-so-big three are certainly are no less global than, say, Honda. General Motors gets 44% of its revenue from other countries and Ford gets 53%, according to Forbes (April 21). A German company, Daimler-Benz, still owns a fifth of Chrysler, and a group of affluent private investors owns the rest.
An “American” brand tells you little about where all the parts in a car are made. I was once at a dinner with Lee Iaccoca where I teased him about my Dodge Stealth, made in Japan by Mitsubishi. Similarly, today’s Chevy Aveo is imported from Daewoo in South Korea. Yet Hyundai has a plant in Alabama.
Cars.com found only four cars and six light trucks with a domestic content (meaning US or Canadian) above 75%. That list includes the Toyota Tundra and Sienna and the Honda Odyssey. Other Honda’s have a 60-70% domestic content, barely missing the cut.
The “Detroit” metaphor for primarily domestic vehicles is also inappropriate. Among the remaining seven vehicles with a very high domestic content, three are made outside Michigan —the Chevy Malibu from Kansas and Cobalt from Ohio, and the Ford Explorer from Kentucky. Ford’s F-150 truck might be made in Michigan or Missouri, the Chevy Silverado in Michigan or Indiana.
Source: The Cato Institute
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