Chapter 2

The Evolution of Competition

in the Automotive Industry1
Matthias Holweg
Judge Business School, University of Cambridge

Abstract. At the dawn of the second automotive century it is apparent that the
competitive realm of the automotive industry is shifting away from traditional
classifications based on firms production systems or geographical homes. Companies across the regional and volume spectrum have adopted a portfolio of manufacturing concepts derived from both mass and lean production paradigms, and the
recent wave of consolidation means that regional comparisons can no longer be
made without considering the complexities induced by the diverse ownership
structure and plethora of international collaborations. In this chapter we review
these dynamics and propose a double helix model illustrating how the basis of
competition has shifted from cost-leadership during the heyday of Fords original
mass production, to variety and choice following Sloans portfolio strategy, to diversification through leadership in design, technology or manufacturing excellence, as in the case of Toyota, and to mass customisation, which marks the current competitive frontier. We will explore how the production paradigms that have
determined much of the competition in the first automotive century have evolved,
what trends shape the industry today, and what it will take to succeed in the automotive industry of the future.

This chapter provides a summary of research conducted as part of the ILIPT Integrated Project
and the MIT International Motor Vehicle Program (IMVP), and expands on earlier works, including the book The second century: reconnecting customer and value chain through build-toorder (Holweg and Pil 2004) and the paper Beyond mass and lean production: on the dynamics
of competition in the automotive industry (conomies et Socits: Srie K: conomie de lEnterprise, 2005, 15:245270).
13

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M. Holweg

2.1 All Competitive Advantage is Temporary

The roots of todays motor industry can be traced back to Henry Ford, who, based
on the inter-changeability of components and the use of the moving assembly line,
laid the foundations for modern-day mass production techniques. Even the basic
features of a car have not changed much since Fords days: a car still has four
wheels, is propelled by a gasoline engine and its body is still welded together from
pressed metal parts. Despite the profound impact that Ford has had on the industry of industries2, its competitive advantage was short-lived and Ford was soon
overtaken by GM, which, based on the visions of Alfred P. Sloan, introduced
a more decentralised organisational structure and offered customers the choice
they wanted through a much broader product portfolio. While civilian production
significantly shrunk during the years of the Second World War, the mass production of cars in the US leveraged the growth of the post-war period until the 1970s
saw increasing competition from Japan, where companies like Toyota seemed to
be able to offer better deals in terms of quality and cost to customers in the US
and Europe.
The success story of lean production, leading to the difficult situation faced by
the US and European manufacturers in the three decades since 1970, is well
known and all major players in the industry have adopted the set of techniques that
were first introduced at Toyota in Japan, the Toyota Production System (TPS), or
lean production as it is more widely known. However, competitive forces are far
from being static, and hence vehicle manufacturers can no longer rely on excellence in production only, especially since the performance gap between them has
been closing (Holweg and Pil 2004). The automotive industry in the new millennium has seen the advent of three key challenges: regionalisation, saturation and
fragmentation of markets, challenges that few manufacturers have addressed successfully to date. New capabilities are required to deal with this competitive situation and return to profitability. There is an increasing number of countries in the
world today that have mastered the skills of producing cars with acceptable levels
of quality, and often at a much lower cost compared with the US, Europe or Japan.
At the turn of the second automotive century the news from the automotive industry in the established regions is anything but encouraging: record losses are being reported in Detroit, and in Europe household names are, for the first time, being squeezed out of the market. Britain alone has seen the closure of five major car
plants over as many years, and one might get the impression that for every factory
that closes in the West, (at least) one is opening in Eastern Europe, India or China
suggesting that the days of the motor industry in the western world are numbered. In Japan, several corporate crises and even threats of bankruptcies have
been averted, most prominently in the case of Nissan.
But painting a picture of gloom misses the point: the industry is mature, the barriers to entry are high and demand is growing on average, global car production
2

A term coined by Peter Drucker in 1946.

2 The Evolution of Competition in the Automotive Industry

15

has increased by just below 2% annually since 1975, and major new markets in Asia
and previously in Latin America have opened opportunities. The real conundrum
is why successful strategies in this industry are so short-lived? Amidst a wealth of
explanations pointing to legacy health care costs, to Chinas rise and to a perennial
overcapacity, the real root cause is commonly overlooked: manufacturers have relied heavily on static business models, and have simply failed to adapt to a changing
environment.
Revisiting the history of the industry soon shows to what extent fortunes have
changed over the last century as companies failed to align their strategies to structural shifts in the marketplace. It was Henry Ford who built his empire based on
his ability to mass produce vehicles at an unrivalled cost, albeit in any colour as
long as it is black. Fords superiority was successfully challenged by Alfred P.
Sloan at GM, who sensed the customers in maturing markets desired more variety
than Ford was providing. Sloan offered a car for every purse and purpose, and
Ford soon lost its market leadership in 1927 never to regain that position.
After the war all manufacturers soared on the seemingly insatiable demand that
happily took every vehicle produced. Fortunes only changed when the oil crises
increased demand for economical cars, which was met by increasing imports from
Japan that threatened the heartland of the US and European manufacturers. Trade
barriers were soon called for, but as Japanese transplant operations sprung up, this
invasion could not be halted. This pattern of import competition entering the
low segments of the market has replicated itself several times over since: in the
1970s Japanese imports threatened the US and European manufacturers, in the
1980s it was the growing South Korean motor industry that happily filled the
space the Japanese vehicle manufacturers left as they moved upmarket, and there
is little doubt that the Chinese manufacturers will lead the next wave of import
competition by the end of the decade.
Initially, this success was achieved through leveraging their cost advantage, but
today the Japanese and Koreans are competing on a level playing field and
thanks to superior manufacturing methods, have captured a 17% market share in
Western Europe, and even 37% of the US car market. The real issue that drove
this expansion was not labour cost, but the Western manufacturers inability to
adopt leaner manufacturing methods to meet the Eastern productivity and quality
standards.
Instead, Western manufacturers sought salvation in size. The mantra of the
1990s was that an annual production of one million units and global market coverage ensured survival, and we are now seeing the fall-out from this single-minded
pursuit of volume. Daimler-Benz was not the only one to get caught out: BMW
equally failed in its venture with Rover, as did GM in its alliance with Fiat. The
wider lesson here is that scale alone does not ensure survival. Those alliances,
which do indeed provide economies of scale, crucially also feature a strong complementarity in terms of capabilities. Take Renault-Nissan for example: leveraging
compatible product architectures, Nissans manufacturing strongly complements
Renaults design capabilities. This also applies to market coverage: Nissan is well
represented in Asia and North America, where Renault has hardly any presence.

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M. Holweg

Renault is considerably stronger in Europe and South America, where Nissan

plays a minor role. And for some, not allying with other firms makes perfect sense
of which Toyota and Honda are living proof and even BMW does much better
without a volume car division.
At present, all attention is on the growth in China and India, where combined
vehicle production has grown to an equivalent of 44% of Western European output. Suppliers and manufacturers alike tremble at the thought of low-cost imports
from this region, and the China price is an often-used menace in price negotiations. Frequently omitted though is that manufacturers and suppliers alike have
benefited handsomely from the growth of the Chinese domestic market. Nonetheless, Western manufacturers have been responding with a steady migration into
low-cost regions such as Eastern Europe initially Poland, the Czech Republic
and Hungary, and soon into Slovakia and Romania; yet, this strategy is short-lived
at best: competing on cost alone is not only futile, it also misses the point.
Success in this mature industry neither has been, nor will it ever be decided on
the basis of unit cost or scale alone. It is the ability of the manufacturer to sense
trends in the market, and align its product range that determines success. And it is
this stubborn refusal to accept these changes that poses the greatest threat to the
Western motor industry: relying on high volumes of gas-guzzling SUVs in times
of rising fuel prices and growing environmental concerns is as short-sighted as the
European manufacturers perennial love affair with luxury vehicles.
China and legacy costs are often portrayed as the main threats to the industry,
but they are not the root cause of the woes we are feeling. In the long run, wages
will rise even in China, as they have already done in Japan and Korea. And as one
low-cost region develops, soon there will be another emerging. These mantras of
scale and low unit cost might have worked in the past, but no longer suffice in todays dynamic world. Those who are able to adapt to shifts in market demand and
to respond to customers wishes will thrive, and rightfully so if history teaches
us one thing, it is that all competitive advantage is temporary.
In this chapter, we will explore in detail the past, present and future of competition in the automotive industry. How did production systems evolve that determined competition in the past, what are the present trends that shape this global
industry, and what will it take to succeed in the future?

2.2 The Past: The Evolution of Production Systems

The motor industry has made a dramatic transition over the last century. From
small workshops that had crafted customised vehicles for the affluent few, to
Fords mass-produced Model T, which made motoring available to the public at
large, and to the Toyota Production System, which proved to the world that high
productivity and high quality can be achieved at the same time. Many researchers
have studied these drastic transitions in the motor industry, trying to understand
how this drastic change could happen in such a short time. Historians such as

2 The Evolution of Competition in the Automotive Industry

17

David Hounshell, Allan Nevins and Lawrence White, for example, debate the
drivers and enablers of the change from the craft production of the late 19th century, which was prevalent at the time (Nevins 1954; Nevins and Hill 1957; White
1971; Hounshell 1984), and Womack et al. and Takahiro Fujimoto give a detailed
account of the lean production paradigm as a contrast to the mass production approach (Womack et al. 1990; Fujimoto 1999).
At the start of the automotive industry were the craft producers of the likes of
Panhard et Levassor, Duesenberg, and Hispano Suiza, which employed a skilled
workforce to hand-craft single vehicles customised to the wishes of the few customers who could afford them. The core of the mass production logic, or the Fordist system, which was to turn the economies of the motor industry upside down
from 1908 onwards, was not the moving assembly line, as many suspect, but in
fact the inter-changeability of parts, and Fords vision to maximise profit by
maximising production and minimising cost. This notion was very different from
the existing economies of the craft producers, where the cost of building one vehicle differed little if only a single car was made, or a thousand identical ones: since
all parts were hand-made, and subsequently amended by the so-called fitters, the
amount of labour required per vehicle differed little, if at all. Furthermore, most
vehicles at the time were customised to individual requirements, so standardising
parts was not a priority.
It was this notion of the inter-changeability of parts that would become the
critical enabler of Fords mass production system, a concept that originally stems
from the arms-making sector (Hounshell 1984). Initially proposed by Eli Whitney
and later implemented by Samuel Colt, the ability to standardise parts meant that
the assembly operation could be streamlined, and the entire job function of the
skilled fitter was made redundant. The moving assembly line, however, implemented by Ford in his Highland Park factory in 1913 for the first time, is merely
a logical evolution of the production concepts of flow production and standardisation of parts and job functions. As Robert Hall argues, [] there is strong historical
evidence that any time humans have engaged in any type of mass production, concepts to improve the flow and improve the process occur naturally (Hall 2004, personal communica-

tion). Historians to date disagree who actually invented the moving assembly line,
whether it was within Ford or within the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company, and who within Ford made the critical changes (Nevins 1954; Hounshell
1984). In my view this debate is hardly relevant: it was Fords vision to produce
the most vehicles at the lowest possible cost that became the imprint of mass production, and the foundation stone of motor industry economics of the 20th century
(White 1971; Rhys 1972). In the same way, it has been argued that Ford was influenced by the Taylorist approach of Scientific Management, which was proposed at a time when Fords mass production model was still being crafted (Taylor
1911). However, there is no evidence that this influence actually happened, and
indeed Ford never referred to Taylor as such in any official documentation (Hounshell 1984). Instead, the concomitant standardisation of work practices and the
product itself, the inter-changeability of components, flow production, and the
moving assembly line should be seen as tools that allowed Henry Ford to turn his

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M. Holweg
Model T Production, Sales Volume and Retail Price
$1,400.00

2,500,000

$1,200.00
2,000,000

1,500,000
Units

$800.00
$600.00

1,000,000

Retail Price

$1,000.00

$400.00
500,000
$200.00
$0.00

0
1908 1910 1912 1914 1916 1918 1920 1922 1924 1926
Retail Price MAX

Retail Price MIN

Production

Sales per Model Year

Fig. 2.1 Model T production, sales and retail price band 19081927. Source of data: Benson
Ford Research Center. Nominal monetary values by year

vision into reality, rather than as the essence of mass production. As Peter Drucker
puts it: [] The essence of the mass production process is the reversal of conditions from
which the theory of monopoly was deduced. The new assumptions constitute a veritable economic revolution (Drucker 1946).

Henry Ford had the vision that literally changed the face of the planet to
produce large volumes of cars in order to reduce the cost per unit, and make the
cars available to the masses. And his new mass production, first called as such
in an article in the 1925 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, worked well for
almost two decades. Ford was able to reduce the labour hours for assembly of the
vehicle from 750 h in 1913 to 93 h in 1914, and the entry-level sales price for
a Model T could be reduced from $1,200 in 1909 to $690 in 1914 (see Fig. 2.1).
With the introduction of the moving assembly line came labour challenges. The
new type of work was not well received by the work force, and staff turnover
soared to unsustainable levels (Hounshell, 1984). And although sometimes misinterpreted as a philanthropic move by Henry Ford, the famous five-dollar-day
was primarily geared at making the workplace attractive for workers to stay, and
as a secondary effect also meant that his own workers soon became able to buy
these cars, so demand was stimulated.
The demise of the pure mass production logic came suddenly, and as a surprise
to Henry Ford: when for the first time in 1927 more customers bought their second
cars than bought their first, it soon became clear that the outdated Model T (which
from 1914 to 1926 was indeed only available in one colour, black) could not offer
the level of specifications expected by the customers. It was at this time that Alfred P. Sloan at General Motors could finally compete against Ford. By offering

2 The Evolution of Competition in the Automotive Industry

19

a car for every purse and purpose, GM was able to offer customers the choice
they desired, and the possibility to move up from the mass brands such as Chevrolet, to prestige brands, such as Cadillac all within the realms of the GM brand
portfolio. Fords market share dwindled from 55% in 1921 to 30% in 1926, and it
took Ford a long time to develop the replacement model for the Model T, the
Model A, in order to be able to compete against GM. In the view of many historians, Sloan complemented Fords mass production model by marrying the mass
production logic with the need to offer choice and a brand portfolio to the customer. As a key element of constant innovation, or the search for novelty, Sloan
also introduced the model year in the 1930s, which involved cosmetic updates to
each vehicle each year a practice that persists today.
Hounshell (1984) refers to this stage as flexible mass production, although
one should be clear that the increasing levels of product variety led to just the opposite factories found it difficult to cope with the product and part variety, so
components and vehicles were made in large batches to make the economies of
scale so critical to mass production. Consequently, lead times and inventory levels
soon rose in those factories that Womack et al. describe as typical mass producers
in their seminal work The machine that changed the world, which marked the second major turning point for the auto industry of the 20th century (Womack et al.
1990; for a comprehensive review see also Holweg 2007).
Womack et al. described the Toyota Production System (TPS), which had been
developed at Toyota in Japan as an alternative way of manufacturing cars. Taiichi
Ohno and Saiichi Toyoda, the intellectual fathers of the approach, had borrowed
many ideas from Fords original flow production system at Highland Park: tightly
synchronised processes, short changeovers that allowed for small-batch production, machines that stopped in the event of a defect, and a social system designed
around workforce empowerment and continuous improvement (Pil and MacDuffie
1996). For a detailed discussion of the evolution of the Toyota Production System
see Cusumano 1985, and Fujimoto 1999. Further inspired by quality gurus such as
Deming, this lean production system, a term coined by MIT researcher John Krafcik (Krafcik 1988), soon proved to the world that the notion of trading quality
against productivity was invalid. Prior to this, the assumption was that high quality
levels could be achieved only if more labour was used to correct the quality problems, and vice versa, so that higher productivity would invariably compromise
product quality.
This Japanese manufacturing model had been known as just-in-time in the
Western world since the early 1980s, but surprisingly little notice was taken
(Schonberger 1982; Hall 1983; Monden 1983; Ohno 1988). It was only in the late
1980s, when Japanese imports captured an increasing portion of the US auto market, that the Western auto industry became concerned. Henry Ford II even called
the Japanese imports an economic Pearl Harbour. Initially, attempts were made
to restrict imports through voluntary trade agreements (Altshuler et al., 1984), but
it soon transpired that the Japanese possessed a unique ad-vantage. And it was not
until researchers of the MIT International Motor Vehicle Program showed that
taking the differences in vehicle size into account the best Japanese were almost

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M. Holweg

twice as productive as their American counterparts. The Japanese took an average

16.8 h to build a car, the US makers 24.9, and the European 35.5 h (Womack et al.
1990). At the same time, Japanese vehicles showed much higher levels of product
quality, and thus could disprove the common belief of a general trade-off between
productivity and quality in manufacturing. Although known for almost a decade in
the West, the Machine book brought the lean production paradigm into the Western world by showing its superiority in the global comparison and all at a time,
when the Japanese exports posed the greatest threat to their Western counterparts.
Since then, most manufacturers have adopted lean manufacturing techniques in
their operations. Although for political reasons often not called just-in-time or
lean, initiatives like the Ford Production System and its counterparts at the
other Western manufacturers are clear evidence that key features of the lean production paradigm have been implemented (to a varying extent) by most manufacturers in the US and Europe. Also, starting with the opening of Hondas factory in
Marysville, Ohio in 1984, the Japanese carmakers established a strong local manufacturing presence in the US, Europe, and emerging markets through their transplant operations, further aiding the diffusion of lean manufacturing techniques into
the component manufacturing bases in the Western world. These operations, in
particular in the US, were established to circumvent import tariffs, but played a key
role in disseminating the knowledge of lean production (Krafcik 1986; MacDuffie
and Pil 1994; Pil and MacDuffie 1999).

2.3 The Present: Shifts in the Competitive Landscape

At the start of its second century, the automotive industry is undergoing a period
of drastic change: we have seen both record profits and bankruptcy of global suppliers and manufacturers, some of the largest industry mergers and de-mergers,
and largely thanks to emerging new markets an ever increasing global demand
for automobiles. If one looked at the present news coverage of the automotive industry across the globe, the obvious conclusion would be that this is an industry in
deep trouble. In its last year of being the largest vehicle manufacturer on the
planet, GM posted a loss of $8.6bn dollars, and the combined job cuts announced
in early 2006 by GM and Ford totalled 60,000, with no less than 26 plants to be
closed in North America by 2008. Unsurprisingly, US employment in automotive
manufacturing has steadily fallen from 1.3 million in 2000, to 1.1 million in 2005.
In Europe, the situation is hardly more comforting. In January 2006, Volkswagen
tuned in with a further 20,000 job cuts, and Mercedes and parent company DaimlerChrysler announced a combined 14,500 in addition to the 40,000 Chrysler jobs
lost after the 1988 merger. And while Fiat posted profits in 2005, this came after
17 consecutive quarters of operational losses and after employing almost as many
CEOs over that period. And, last but not least, in April of 2005, MG Rover ceased
operation, ending a century of the British volume car industry. To put this into perspective, British Leyland (the former name of Rover) was nothing less than the

2 The Evolution of Competition in the Automotive Industry

21

50,000,000
45,000,000
40,000,000
35,000,000
30,000,000
25,000,000
20,000,000
15,000,000
10,000,000
5,000,000

US and Canada

W Europe

E Europe

Japan

S Korea

China

India

Rest of Asia

Latin America

S Africa

Other

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000

1999

1998

1997

1996

1995

1994

1993

1992

1991

1990

1989

1988

1987

1986

1985

1984

1983

1982

1981

1980

1975

Fig. 2.2 World passenger car production by region, 19752006. Source: Wards Yearbooks

fourth-largest vehicle manufacturer in the world in 1970, with a production volume

of close to 1 million units per annum.
In Asia, where the perception is generally that the management techniques of
manufacturing companies are superior, a similar picture emerges. With the possible exception of Toyota, we have seen the near bankruptcy and foreign takeover of
Nissan, and major crises at Mitsubishi, Daewoo and Proton.
Overall, the automotive industry is not a happy place at the start of its second
century. However, there is a paradox to this malaise: despite the depressing news,
we are building more motor vehicles than ever. In 2004, global production of
passenger cars totalled 42.5 million units, to be complemented by 21.2 million
commercial vehicles, which added to the global total of 837 million vehicles in
operation that need to be maintained and serviced. On average, the production of
automobiles has been growing by 2.2% (1.8% for passenger cars) every year since
1975 (see Fig. 2.2). So why is it that this mature industry, with its high barriers of
entry, that clearly finds customers for its products, finds it so hard to create a profitable and sustainable business proposition?
The answer is not as straightforward as some of the simplistic answers that
have been suggested: legacy healthcare costs, overcapacity, and of course, the
cheap imports from China. There is an element of truth in each, but none can explain what is fundamentally going on in the industry. Indeed, the legacy costs for
some manufacturers like GM are calculated at $1,525 for each vehicle sold, but if
a UAW worker earns $60,000 plus benefits, this cannot come as a surprise. This
adjustment in labour cost should have come much earlier on, as GM was essentially still living in the good times of the past. Overcapacity, in 2004 estimated at
approximately 20 million annual units globally, is a similar issue: the developments

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M. Holweg

that have led to the present situation have been on the cards for a long time, and
there is no need for this drastic problem, as we will discuss below. And finally,
China constitutes both the threat of cheap imports, but largely also a huge opportunity due to the domestic demand. Nonetheless, the underlying shift in the manufacturing footprint, together with the persisting overcapacity created, competition
in the automotive industry is fierce. Plagued by legacy costs and increasing product
variety, vehicle manufacturers are constantly seeking ways to compete in a world
that features increasingly demanding and impatient customers on the one hand,
and the threat of cheap Chinese imports on the other. Let us examine the key
trends that have, and still are shaping the competitive arena of the motor industry:
regionalisation, fragmentation and saturation, as well as the resulting structural
changes in the supply chain that these have invoked.

2.3.1 Regionalisation
Over the past few decades, we have observed several distinct shifts in the manufacturing footprint that has shaped the industrys structure as it is today. As demand
in the established regions has been stagnating, we have seen several major waves
of investment in emerging markets. In 1970, the vehicle production of the US,
Western Europe and Japan combined accounted for 91% of the worlds 22.5 million
car production. Back then, the US and Western Europe in particular were large net
exporters, while Japan was still on a steep curve of increasing both production and
export volumes. By 2004, the picture had changed considerably. Of the 42.8 million units that were built, only 70% came from the three established regions, USA,
Europe and Japan. The number of assembly plants had grown from 197 to 460, of
which only 44% were located in North America, Western Europe and Japan. What
had happened was that the industry had distributed its manufacturing base:
whereas previously largely knock-down operations (CKD or SKD) were used in
emerging markets, the growth of their respective domestic demand now justified
full-scale assembly plants. The increase in demand in Latin America in the 1990s,
for example, sparked a wave of investment in the motor industry in those countries. From 1980 to 2000, the combined vehicle production in Argentina, Brazil
and Mexico nearly doubled to just under 4 million units. Yet, the experience obtained in Latin America also serves as a warning signal, as the demand in Brazil
and Argentina collapsed sharply after currency devaluation. Exchange rate uncertainty remains an issue, today more than ever, with respect to the most recent
wave of expansion in China, and the artificially pegged Yuan.
The opening of the Chinese domestic market, in conjunction with a strict growth
policy, has seen the dramatic rise of the Chinese automotive industry. With virtually no passenger car production before 1980, China produced 2.32 million cars
(total vehicles: 5.1 million) in 2004. Of these, 90% were made by the joint venture
companies of the large foreign manufacturers, and virtually all have been (so far)
sold domestically. Even by the later parts of this decade more than 90% of Chinas

2 The Evolution of Competition in the Automotive Industry

23

Table 2.1 Share of world car production by region, 19712003. Source: Centre for Competitiveness and Innovation, University of Cambridge

World car
production

(in million
units)

Industrialised Percentage of
countries
world car production
Percentage of
growth (based
on previous
period)
Newly indus- Percentage of
trialised
world car procountries
duction
Percentage of
growth (based
on previous
period)

1971 1980

1990

1995

1997

2000

2001

2002

26.45 28.61

36.27

36.07

38.45

41.23

39.97

41.22

41.78

90.85

87.84

81.98

73.44

74.85

75.27

72.26

70.12

89.90

7.03% 23.87% 7.19% 4.5%

5.14% 7.65%

2003

9.28% 4.28% 0.83% 1.62%

8.66% 15.05% 17.31% 17.22% 18.00% 21.36% 23.45%

61.03% 43.38% 72.93% 22.6%

6.19% 0.08% 24.61% 11.3%

production is used to meet growing domestic demand, and thus does not yet pose
an import threat of the kind that Japan and South Korea did, and maybe still do.
What one can observe here is not what is commonly referred to as globalisation,
but what is much better described as regionalisation of the industry. The net export
balance that fostered the growth of the automotive industry in the industrialised
world over much of the last century is gradually being replaced with an infrastructure that builds vehicles locally, close to the customer. The immediate result for the
established regions has been a necessary yet painful capacity adjustment, and the
closure of plants like Luton, Dagenham and Longbridge in the UK are likely to be
followed by others in Western Europe. In the USA, the overcapacity situation is
even more pronounced, and further Big Three plant closures in addition to those
already announced are expected.
Lower labour costs are generally stated as the main reason for the increase in
decentralising global production into countries with low labour costs, and comparing the nominal hourly remunerations, there are indeed stark differences (see Table 2.2). But how significant are labour costs? First of all, in the overall cost structure, the approximate production cost of a vehicle from the customers point of
view breaks down as follows: 31% of the list price is accounted for by distribution
and marketing costs, as well as dealer and manufacturer margins; the 69% exfactory costs split into 48% for procured parts and materials, 9% overheads, and
only 13% is related to the vehicle production operation. Here, labour represents
the largest component, alongside capital investment depreciation of the production
assets. When one compares the above to the hourly rates a worker earns then it is
obvious that labour cost is indeed a significant competitive factor in the lower
segments of the market; yet, it does play a decreasing role in the higher market
segment, where firms do not compete on cost alone, but on technological innovation, design and brand image.

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M. Holweg

Table 2.2 Average hourly remuneration for production workers in manufacturing. Data for
2003, Source: Bureau of Labour Statistics 2004 & Economist 2005
Germany $29.91 South Korea

$10.28

USA

$21.97 Czech Republic $4.71

UK

$20.37 Brazil

Japan

$20.09 Mexico

$2.48

Spain

$14.96 PR China

$1.30

$2.67

2.3.2 Fragmentation of Markets

The second key trend is one that is relatively easy to observe; namely, the implosion of traditional vehicle segments, in favour of cross-over and niche vehicles.
The traditional segments of small cars (B-segment, e.g. Polo or Fiesta), compact
cars (C-segment, e.g. Golf and Focus), family cars (D-segment, e.g. Passat and
Mondeo), and executive class (E-segment, such as E-class and 5-series) have been
joined by SUVs, MPVs, UAVs, and the like. In quantitative terms, this trend can
be easily seen: across Europe, in 1990 a total of 187 models were offered, which
increased to a total of 315 models in 2003. This increase is not only due to the new
segments, such as MPVs and SUVs, but also to model line expansions in existing
segments. The B-segment of the Corsa and Fiesta, for example, saw an increase
from 16 to 31 models over that time period.
The increase in model range is accompanied by a general shortening of product
life cycles. While the average time a product stayed in the market was around 7 years
in 1970, this average has been reduced to 5 years a trend consistent across the US
and Western Europe. In Japan, life cycles have traditionally been much shorter,
and some companies like Toyota have coped by building two generations on one
platform, before changing both design and platform with the third generation.
Together, the increase in model range and the reduction in life cycles have
a drastic impact on the economies of scale that can be achieved. The volume sold
per model has been significantly reduced over time, which gives the manufacturers less and less opportunity to recover their considerable development cost. As
a reaction, manufacturers are trying to increase the component sharing and platform usage across as many models as possible. Table 2.3 illustrates the overall
shifts in volume per model, and the use of platforms in Europe.
This development is, and will continue to be, a major challenge for vehicle
manufacturers. While the large players are currently working on leveraging their
resources across their brands, for smaller companies this is not so easy. One reason why MG Rover failed was the need to cover the growing new market segments, while volumes were shrinking in the traditional segments in which it was
offering products. Ultimately, its volumes were too small to finance the required
product development programmes, and with an ageing line-up in limited segments, sales continued to fall.

2 The Evolution of Competition in the Automotive Industry

25

Table 2.3 Platform usage in the European automotive industry. Source: Pil and Holweg (2004)
1990 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002
Number of platforms in use
(Europe)

60

60

57

56

53

51

45

45

48

Number of body types offered

(Europe)

88

137

139

148

157

162

170

178

182

Average number of body types

per platform

1.5

2.3

2.4

2.6

3.0

3.2

3.8

4.0

3.8

Average production volume

by platform (in 1,000s)

190

171

185

194

199

215

249

272

258

Average production volume

by body type (in 1,000s)

129

75

76

73

67

68

66

69

68

2.3.3 Saturation and Overcapacity

The third key trend is a malaise that is entirely self-inflicted: as a result of the failure to adjust capacity to demand, the auto industry suffers from a global overcapacity that at this point is estimated at 20 million units equivalent to the combined installed capacity in Western Europe! The basic reason for the overcapacity
is an asymmetry: it is much easier to add capacity than it is to reduce it. With an
average level of employment of 5,000 workers per assembly plant and an additional job multiplier of up to four jobs in the supply chain, governments encourage, and most often also subsidise, the building of new vehicle assembly plants.
For the same reason, closing a plant when demand drops is difficult and quickly
becomes a political issue.
The main consequence of the overcapacity is that manufacturers in their quest
to keep capacity utilisation high produce into the growing inventories of unsold
cars (around 1.52 months in most markets), and then employ sales incentives,
such as discounts, high trade-in prices, free upgrades, and the like, to maintain
their market share. Initially, the problem was confined to the North American
market, which after the recession of 2001 has seen an increasing war of attrition
between the manufacturers. Average incentives then and to-day range between
$2,000 and $6,000 per vehicle. That way, the Big Three have indeed managed to
maintain their market share, yet their position is not sustainable, as the respective
2005 losses of Fords and GMs automotive businesses graphically illustrate.
The root cause here is a chronic inability to adjust output to demand and link
the production schedule to actual customer orders. While Henry Ford founded the
industry on the premise of making vehicles as efficiently and inexpensively as
possible, this mass production volume-push approach is no longer viable in current settings of saturated markets, where one has to deal with increasingly demanding customers. At times when Dell illustrates that one can order a customised
product that is built to order within only a few days, the established automotive

26

M. Holweg

business model seems obsolete. Several manufacturers have understood the need
to link production to customer demand and have successfully initiated build-toorder (BTO) programmes, such as Renault, Nissan, BMW and Volvo. Their success has illustrated that one can indeed build a car to customer order within
3 weeks or less, and operate without the costly finished vehicle inventories and the
incentives needed to clear the overproduced cars from dealer stock. Most other
manufacturers recognise the need to get closer to their customers, but implementation often lags behind what the press releases state. One could argue that while
there is widespread intellectual acceptance, there is an equally widespread institutional apathy.

2.3.4 Structural Changes in the Supply Chain

The pressures outlined above faced by the manufacturers have led to internal
changes (such as increased platform usage across models), but the wakes are
equally felt in the supply chain most prominently at the interface with the firsttier suppliers. The main changes here are a general reduction of supplier numbers
per vehicle assembly plant, the re-distribution (i.e. outsourcing) of value-added activities, and the increase in globally sourced components and materials.
The reduction in supplier numbers, shown in Table 2.4, is driven by two strategies: first, in order to develop longer term, collaborative (Japanese-style) relationships, vehicle manufacturers focus on a few key partners, rather than change suppliers opportunistically based on unit price only. Second, the increasing product
variety means that vehicle manufacturers have to rely more and more on their suppliers to provide the design and assembly of key vehicle systems and modules.
This drive towards outsourcing required a re-tiering of the supply chain, whereby
several previous first-tier suppliers became 0.5-tier module or systems suppliers,
now sourcing components from their previous first-tier peers. For the vehicle
manufacturer, outsourcing was also a means of harnessing the lower labour costs
at suppliers ($17 versus $23/h in the USA) and to reduce transaction costs by dealing with fewer suppliers at the same time.
Unlike the components we see in the computer sector that feature standardised
interfaces, a motor vehicle features a largely integral product architecture that
Table 2.4 Number of suppliers across Japan, Europe, the USA and new entrant countries.
Source: Holweg and Pil (2004)
Region

1990

1994

2000

Japanese OEMs in Japan

170

173

206

European OEMs in Europe

494

357

341

US OEMs in North America

534

457

376

New entrant countries

409

615

201

2 The Evolution of Competition in the Automotive Industry

27

renders the outsourcing of modules difficult. The drive towards modularity also
called for a geographical change in the supply chain. With the need to provide sequenced parts deliveries at short notice, supplier parks were created in the 1990s
that housed primarily module and systems suppliers in the immediate vicinity of
the car assembly plant. And within these parks, logistics companies often took on
tasks such as component sequencing and minor assembly tasks. In a general sense,
considerable value added by the manufacturer was outsourced to component suppliers, and to a lesser extent, logistics service providers.
Interestingly, the structural changes in the auto supply chain do show a stark
dichotomy. On the one hand, increasing outsourcing requires physical proximity
to enable a fast response time to manufacturers call-off signals. On the other
hand, manufacturers are increasingly sourcing components from distant regions
with low labour costs, such as Eastern Europe, Mexico or China, which induces
long logistics lead times. Despite the hype, China was still a net importer of components in 2004, but it is widely estimated that this balance will shift towards increased component export in 2008. Sourcing from China, however, creates operational tensions, in particular where customised or configured components are
sourced from abroad. For example, the wiring harness is generally specific to a
particular vehicle, yet very labour intensive, which poses a constant temptation to
source it from low-cost regions. With a logistics lead time of as many as 6 weeks,
this means that the build schedule has to be set for these 6 weeks in advance,
which severely limits manufacturing flexibility and makes a rapid response to an
impatient customer almost impossible.
The auto industry is undergoing considerable change, and it is in particular the
structure of the supply chain that is changing. Caught between a rock and a hard
place, manufacturers are trying to become more responsive to customer needs
and avoid the costly inventories and sales incentives that cut into their profitability at present. At the same time, they are trying to reduce cost by outsourcing
tasks, and by sourcing components from low-cost regions, and in some cases,
even relocating their vehicle assembly operations to these regions. While the current competitive pressures in the motor industry are not likely to subside for the
time being, logistics companies on both the inbound and the outbound side can
harness these for their growth. Bridging the gap between distant component suppliers, and coordinating a supply chain that increasingly is not only measured
on cost alone, but also on how fast it can deliver the product to the customer, is
a task that neither vehicle manufacturers nor suppliers are particularly well set up
to do. Here, logistics companies have the unique ability to integrate their core
transportation business with additional value-added services that can include anything from component sequencing and the management of supplier parks, to the
late configuration of entire vehicles (Reichhart and Holweg 2008). In an industry
that features intense competition and a global stage at the same time, logistics
companies are the connecting element in the system, and now have the chance to
advance as an enabler of a supply chain that is both cost-efficient and responsive
to customer needs.

28

M. Holweg

2.4 The Future: Competing in the Second Automotive Century

At the turn into the second automotive century, the automotive industry finds itself
in a complex competitive situation, and one that is hard to explain with the current
notions of craft, mass and lean producers The reason is that the competitive
landscape is much less clearly divided than it had been for most of the first automotive century. Boyer et al. (1998) illustrate this fact well by showing that instead of a universal best practice auto companies have developed individual
forms of work organisations and production systems that are shaped by their respective national environments and business histories.
First, the persistent overcapacity in the industry has resulted in an unprecedented wave of mergers and acquisitions in the industry. Coupled with the financial crises in Asia and considerable mismanagement in many Japanese industrial
conglomerates, the keiretsus, this has led to the situation that apart from Toyota
and Honda all Japanese carmakers were at least partially owned by a Western
vehicle manufacturer at the end of the 20th century. Also, most Western manufacturers have joined forces with others in order to achieve higher economies of scale
in purchasing and product development, to develop a global brand portfolio, and
to gain access to emerging markets. Many of these mergers have a rather troubled
history, such as DaimlerChrysler and Mitsubishi, are far from delivering the financial returns that were hoped for, and have not led to the reduction in global overcapacity that had been hoped for (Holweg and Pil 2004).
Second, since almost all vehicle manufacturers across global regions have
adopted lean manufacturing techniques, the competitive advantage of the Japanese
has been considerably reduced. The results from the global assembly plant survey
of the MIT International Motor Vehicle Program show that the gap between the
US and Japan has been reduced to duration of build. As shown in Fig. 2.3, the average vehicle build takes 16.6 h in the US, compared with 12.3 h in Japan and
21.3 h in Europe (Holweg and Pil 2004). Equally, product quality has improved
considerably since 1990. In fact, the quality has improved so much that JD Power

Fig. 2.3 Labour productivity across US, Europe, Japan and new entrant countries. Source:
Holweg and Pil (2004)

2 The Evolution of Competition in the Automotive Industry

29

(the institution that collects the customer quality data) had to tighten up their
measurements in 1997, as most vehicles simply scored zero defects. Overall, our
current benchmarking studies found strong evidence that the message of lean
had indeed been heard in the Western world, and although Japan is still in the lead,
the competitive situation is far less drastic than it was in 1990.
Third, the globalisation and wave of mergers in the 1990s also meant that
a global identity is far less obvious to establish. The same applies to the brand image. Is Volvo still Swedish, or is Saab now American? Not only has the ownership
of many national producers changed, some of their vehicles may also not even
be produced in their home countries any longer in the future. This raises further
questions as to whether any regional comparisons (the Japanese model against
the Western model, for example), still make any sense. This is furthermore
problematic as a strong local manufacturing presence dilutes the incentives for
policy-makers. In fact, the Big Three have continuously been losing their market
share in the US, and in 2002 even lost their majority in the US passenger car market, down from a market share of more than 90% in the 1950s. Accordingly, the
assembly capacity that is being added to the US market is almost exclusively
thanks to new Japanese, Korean and European transplants, whereas the Big Three
show a consistent net loss of capacity and employment. Thus, the transplants make
an attractive proposition to policy makers, and are generally being subsidised by
the respective local governments. Building automobiles remains the worlds largest manufacturing activity, and the industry directly or indirectly employs one in
every seven people (Sako 2002).
While the fortunes in the industry have changed drastically over the last century, the way we sell and distribute cars has not. In fact, Henry Fords legacy
equally lies in the way we run factories, and sell the vehicles that have been made
by our mass production factories. Craft producers used to build all vehicles to customer order in the 1900s. Henry Ford made his Model T entirely to forecast and
sold the cars from dealer stock, which allowed him to run the factories as efficiently as possible. His reasoning was that running higher volumes at the factory
would reduce unit cost, and thus the sales price. Lower sales prices in turn would
increase demand, and therefore sales. This logic was fine when demand exceeded
supply, but in todays market, where increasingly demanding customers require
customised vehicles at short lead times, this forecast-driven model is flawed
(Holweg and Pil 2004). Yet, to date, most manufacturers drive their production by
long-term sales forecasts, and then hope to sell their vehicles from dealer stock
thereafter. As can be seen in Table 2.5, the majority of vehicles are still built to
forecast across regions. The basic underlying problem of increasing the content of
vehicles built to order (thus avoiding the costly inventory and sales incentives) are
the long lead time it takes to build and deliver a vehicle to order. In Europe, the
average order-to-delivery (OTD) lead time is 41 days, yet customers are generally
only willing to wait 23 weeks (with the exception of few very patient customers,
and the German market, where build-to-order has a long tradition). Thus, in order
not to lose any sales to competitors with better availability, manufacturers produce
vehicles against a sales forecast, and sell vehicles from stock, where they are

30

M. Holweg

Table 2.5 Sales sourcing in major volume markets. Source: Shioji (2000), Williams (2000)
Sales source

Europe United
Germany United Japan
Kingdom
States (Toyota)

Cars built to customer order (BTO) (%)

48

32

62

60

Sales from central stock (distribution centres) 14

or transfer between dealers (BTF) (%)

51

Sales from dealer stock (BTF) (%)

17

30

89

34

38

instantly available to the customers. Supply is driven by the production forecast,

and demand is adjusted by using sales incentives.
In a world of global overcapacity and fashion-conscious consumers, the results
of this mass production logic are disastrous: vehicle manufacturers use increasing
amounts of sales incentives to sell off their overproduction, and thereby not only
erode their brand image, but also put serious strain on the residual values of their
brands and models. This in turn hurts the (currently still) very profitable leasing
operations of the vehicle manufacturers (Holweg and Pil 2001). In fact, manufacturers such as GM or Ford currently derive considerably more profits from their
leasing and finance arms than from manufacturing cars in the first place. If the
current make-to-forecast practice and the current levels of incentives persist, that
situation may well change in the future. Since the start of the new millennium, the
Big Three in particular have been fighting a war of attrition on the levels of incentives, and by 2004 levels of $3,000 per vehicle were consistently observed as average across the US market, and exceeded $5,000 for individual models. More recently, these incentives have also affected markets such as Europe, and
surprisingly, the new entrant market, China, where the developing overcapacity is
taking its toll.

2.5 What Next?

The question arises: what is to come next? What new concept might follow the implementation of lean production, increasing scale through platform-sharing, global
mergers and collaborations, and build-to-order strategies? Where is the competitive
realm going to shift after mass customising products? As could be observed in
other sectors, the offer of services around the product could provide further differentiation. For example, one could think of providing a complete mobility service
to the customer, rather than simply selling a vehicle. Yet, even if such advanced
service offerings were to become mainstream in the near future, in terms of manufacturing strategy, however, such a shift would have little impact. Manufacturers
would still build vehicles to customer specification, even if the customer does not
own the vehicle any more, but simply remunerates a service subsidiary of the
manufacturer for using the vehicle. Others argue that the internet will drastically

2 The Evolution of Competition in the Automotive Industry

31

alter the way we market and sell cars, in the same way as telematics offers radically new ways of redefining vehicles as communication platforms (Sako 2002;
Fine 2003). The largely unfulfilled promises of the e-commerce and internet applications, as well as the slow establishment of telematics applications in vehicles,
however, cast serious doubts over their potential to radically alter competition in
the automotive industry.
In my view, the next major change in the competitive realm is going to be triggered by a major shift in technology, i.e. the advent of a disruptive technology
(Christensen 1997). Such radically new technology would then reset the competitive dynamics back to the days of Henry Ford completely new technology will
require considerable changes to current practices and change existing economies,
as did mass production to the automotive industry at the time. Initially, manufacturers will seek to boost production volumes to achieve better economies of scale.
The speed of adoption is critical, as the chicken-and-egg dilemma (high product
price due to low production volume on the one hand, and low sales due to the high
price of the product on the other) needs to be overcome quickly in order to reach
market acceptance. Thus, as in the case of Henry Ford in 1908, the focus will be
on minimising production costs and increasing the market share in order to establish new technology. Only once the market matures will the competition shift
away from mere cost-driven strategies, towards variety, diversification, and customisation. The double helix dynamic that establishes itself, as shown in Fig. 2.4,
is one that mirrors the developments in many other markets and industries, and
one that has been used to describe the evolution of product architecture and other
management processes (Fine and Whitney 1996; Fine 1998). Although we have
seen these dynamics in many sectors, such as electronics and communication,
many times over, the striking fact is that technology in the motor industry has not
yet changed radically, and that we are on the verge of seeing the double helix
complete with in the next few decades. And this change might, for example, be
catalysed by alternative propulsion technologies entering the mass market.
It is not within the remit of this chapter to speculate about the adoption of advanced powertrains in the automotive industry. What is clear, though, is that environmental needs and the price of fossil fuels will require changes to the current
Variety and Choice

Customisation

Technology
Change

Cost Leadership

Diversification

Fig. 2.4 Helix dynamics of competition in the automotive industry

32

M. Holweg

powertrain technology. None of the options at hand has established itself as the
dominant design or technology as yet once this has happened, however, the dynamics of competition would run through the second cycle, with an initial focus
on scale and cost leadership, moving towards greater variety and choice, and on to
diversification, and ultimately, product customisation.

2.6 Conclusion
The competitive realm of the auto industry is dynamic, and has been throughout
the past century. However, contrary to the past, the strategies adopted by firms
are far less distinctly defined than they used to be. Over the last century we have
witnessed the evolution from craft production to mass production under Henry
Ford, to Sloans policy of brand and product variety, to lean production, and more
recently, to build-to-order initiatives at both volume and luxury vehicle manufacturers. Along the way, most manufacturers have adopted a wide range of mass
and lean production tools and techniques, as well as Sloans concept of a brand
portfolio. Thus, today we see elements of all these approaches across manufacturers: the moving assembly line, the product and brand portfolio, model years, and
lean production techniques are common at most manufacturers, even at those luxury makers that traditionally were seen to be craft producers. In the process, the
competitive realm has shifted considerably, and the main basis on which companies are competing has changed.
In this chapter, the dynamics of the competitive realm in the motor industry
have been laid out over time, and four generic phases could be identified: cost
leadership, variety and choice, diversification, and customisation. At present, most
companies are at the diversification and customisation stages of this model, although it could be argued that Ford and GM in North America have remained at
the variety and choice stage, competing on both cost and model variety, whereas
others, such as BMW, Volkswagen, Toyota, Audi, and Renault, have found their
diversifying feature: brand image, innovative design, leading product technology
or manufacturing excellence provide the basis on which these companies have established individual competitive profiles. The next step, to provide individually
customised vehicles, is well underway at most manufacturers, although some have
chosen to opt out of this challenge. Honda, for example, has decided to compete
on the basis of low cost through efficient production (enabled by forecast-driven
strategies and low variety), rather than aiming at customising individual vehicles.
Similar low-cost strategies can be expected from entry-level, low-cost producers
such as Hyundai, Daihatsu, Proton, Kia and Daewoo, which are severely constrained by their import logistics lead times.
What is clear, though, is that all manufacturers have adopted the key elements
of Fords mass production system (consider the standardised work processes, the
moving assembly lines etc. that are standard in assembly plants across the world),
the need to provide variety and choice so drastically demonstrated by Sloans

2 The Evolution of Competition in the Automotive Industry

33

success at GM, and the lean production paradigm that laid the foundation for Toyotas persisting success. Thanks to the implementation of lean production techniques, the way we manufacture vehicles has changed considerably the way we
sell vehicles, however, has changed little since the days of Henry Ford. Large vehicle stocks and sales incentives are the inevitable by-products of the forecastdriven production and sales strategies still pursued by most manufacturers. Few
companies have realised that the new competitive battle, in a setting of global
overcapacity, increasing dynamic variety and customers demanding customised
products, is how to overcome this second legacy of the mass production system:
forecast-driven production planning and vehicle supply. Early adopters of BTO
strategies such as Volvo (Hertz et al. 2001) and Renault (Project Nouvelle Distribution) have the objective of linking the mass production facility to customer
demand. Early adopters will undoubtedly face challenges; yet, most will likely
also benefit the most from adopting BTO, whereas the remaining companies are
likely to be forced to follow suit, or to continue on their mass production path and
become the providers of low-cost, entry-level cars in a segment that will continually
be challenged by low-cost import competition. Truly sustainable competitiveness
in tomorrows automotive industry can only be found in developing customer-responsive supply systems that respond to both demanding customer needs, as well
an increasing product and model variety that has invoked considerable changes in
the economic foundations of the global automotive industry.

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