That Roller Coaster Ride of Automakers

At the moment, automakers are either living their dream or struggling hard to exit from their nightmare. How are they to linger with the fruits of labor at hand? How are they to break free?

According to analysts, the automotive industry is not just driving on rough terrains – it is in fact, riding a roller coaster. With the ups and downs, the thrill and the goose bumps – certainly, being an automaker is one heck of a roller coaster ride.

"It’s like the U.S. housing market," said Marc N. Scheinman, professor of marketing at the Lubin School of Business of Pace University. "Where we trade up in houses, the Venezuelans trade up in cars, and it’s like having gold."

General Motors, Ford and DaimlerChrysler, meanwhile, are racing to augment production at their assembly plants nonetheless; they are still falling behind demand. "Our global revenue is up and is, in fact, at record levels," Robert A. Lutz, G.M.’s vice chairman, said in a recent interview in Detroit. That is true in large part because G.M.’s sales are growing 30 percent annually in China, he said.

Ford is about to start another roller coaster ride. The automaker is now busy promoting its new Super Duty, which is manufactured with brawny and sophisticated Ford truck body parts. Toyota, on one hand, is on the ecstatic part of the roller coaster ride. In fact, fluctuations in gasoline prices and the shift of the automotive market to compact cars did not affect much its automaker's prominent standing in sales reports.

One perceived edge of Toyota's strategies, which include the manufacture of only few Toyota towing mirrors, is the efficiency of workflow. Other automakers manufacture overwhelming designs of mirrors to their detriment.

In other countries, people with the right budget in their pockets might buy houses. But in Venezuela, is a different story. In said territory, a soaring market has made homes too expensive for most. Hence, people are purchase cars rather than houses, as investments. "A car is a good investment because it will have more value in little time," said Gustavo Díaz, 34, owner of a Chevrolet Optra.

In the United States, the vehicle market is 57 times more than that of Venezuela's. Moreover, the bottom line is to produce more without sacrificing quality and safety. Nowadays, people are not necessarily purchasing cars just to drive. They purchase as if it were an investment of a starting investor.