Global Automotive Industry and Technology Transfer 952790
As many of the matured automotive vehicle markets such as North America, Europe and Japan become saturated and fiercely competitive, world major auto manufacturers have been looking for other parts of the globe as potential markets where they could make additional sales and achieve better returns on their invested manufacturing facilities, tooling and engineering.
The globalization of automotive technology will take place as the major players alone or with local partner(s) develop, manufacture and market vehicles globally. Historically, two decades ago GM successfully pioneered a single world car design, Chevette which was built in six countries. The recent Ford global car, “CDW-27” is an ambitious program aimed at global market and is still to be evaluated for it's success.
Because of the perceived advantage of global operations and improved world trade environment, it is generally expected that globalization of the auto industry will be accelerated on a even faster pace. However, not everything is as rosy as it appears and there are tremendous challenges and problems. For example, globalized vehicle engineering and manufacturing produces product failures and recall problems on a global scale.
In this paper, a brief North American perspective of 80s’ globalization of auto industry, the role of transplants in technology transfer, a global car strategy, challenges and problems associated with globalization of the auto industry will be reviewed.
