Interesting article here, but it leaves out foreign corporations. Does anybody have data on Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Hyundai’s total capital investments in the US from 2011?
From what I can tell, for example, Toyota is claiming $18 billion over its 55 year history of doing business in the US (40 years of manufacturing). Obviously the numbers have grown over time simply from increased ops in the US plus inflation. But can they approach Ford’s $3.9 billion for 2011 alone? Chrysler’s $2.5 billion? I’m truly interested in knowing where they really stand, rather than this article’s biased headline which neglects to state that they’re talking about the 25 companies headquartered in the US making the most capital investment in the US…
According to Appendix B of mountainbike’s resource, Toyota was within 18% of Chrysler’s 2006 production. Given the more recent problems with the derivatives market and the Japanese earthquake, this data might be about the most recent that is appropriate for comparison. The document also briefly discusses each foreign manufacturer’s operations in the USA. No investment figures, but still enlightening.
“Honda has over 33000 associates”. Associates? In an assembly plant? Come on they’re production workers, or employees, not associates like partners or something. Same thing for Walmart, they are store clerks or stock clerks. Talk about PC. I thought the feds at least wouldn’t fall for making people feel good. Its getting to be a complicated world but one thing is that Ford workers paid $11 an hour working alongside other Ford worker making $25 an hour doing the same repetitive tasks, is not a good thing no matter how much they invest in the US. You can’t afford to buy products at that pay scale even if it is 20 times higher than the Chinese person doing the same job.
Oh, I guess that was a rant, and there is no more rant board. Still the wage flattening to accommodate companies sending work to China is one of our current problems that aren’t being well addressed IMHO. Ross Perot talked about that giant sucking sound which came to pass, along with Eisenhauer’s Military Industrial complex. Then you give a free reign to grubby bankers and wall streeters, and you have what we have. Slow slow painful growth and few jobs anymore for the unskilled except roofing and field work.
“Associates? In an assembly plant? Come on they’re production workers, or employees, not associates like partners or something. Same thing for Walmart…”
You’re half right. Walmart employees are treated poorly. But Honda employees are treated well. They are allowed to have ideas and encouraged to bring them to management, where they are seriously considered. Everyone is on the team at Honda, as they are at all the Asian manufacturers plants. How do you think they got so good so fast?
I agree with you about grubby bankers and their ilk, but you are too kind in your description. That’s probably a good idea in a public forum.
@Bing - note though, that they report 33,000 “associates” in North America - they’re counting Canada and Mexico in that number. That’s different than the Yahoo story which was focusing on US investment. Honda’s total capital investment at that point in North America was $9 billion - or just 2.3 times Ford’s 2011 US tally alone…
@jtsanders - definitely enlightening, but also failing to make note of relative scale. For example, Ford and Toyota have been back and forth for sales position in the US for several years. As such, I would expect them to be roughly equal. I would expect Toyota to invest more in US operations than Chrysler, as they outsell Chrysler. Similarly, Mercedes, IIRC, actually is a net exporter, so while mountainbike’s link focuses on actual production numbers, they’re doing a much better job than Honda or Toyota investing in the US.
@tsm - thanks, though unfortunately it doesn’t focus on investment in the US (whether they report US or North America is all over the map), and doesn’t have any note of scale.
One of my gripes is people too often focus on “new” plants, when the shell of the building is only a small fraction of the cost, so keeping up “old” plants can take just as much investment… They also fail too often to account for scale v. market share, or focus too much on historical numbers, failing to account for massive productivity improvements and changes in market share.
Um, Eraser, the title of the document is “Foreign-Based Companies Investing in the U.S. Auto Industry”. The entire overview, indeed the document, refer to faicilities and operations “in the United States”. I’m not sure how much clearer it could be.
This report refers to both numbers of “plants” and to monetary investments in the U.S.
@eraser1998 Maybe I don’t follow you. The totals sales data I used was for all vehicles produced by Chrysler and Toyota in the USA. Chrysler produced a little over 1.5 million and Toyota around 1.25 million. Ford produced over 2.7 million in the US. All figures were during 2006.
The document’s title doesn’t reflect what it reports. Read the sections on Honda and Toyota, which include Canadian and Mexican investments and production in their totals. Other than that, it is pretty accurate but dated…