Essays on Automobile Industry

Abstract

This paper tends to highlight the history of automobiles and their impact on society today. This paper will discuss how what motivated the development of automobiles while also stating down the history of automobiles from the traditional and mechanical automotive used years back to the more modern electronic automobiles in use today. The impact of automobiles on society today cannot be understated with the rapid advancements in technology leading to the production of the brilliant machines. But with every advancement brings both negative and positive impacts on society and this paper will discuss these factors in a broader way. ...

1. Drivers of high costs of General Motors production According to the estimations of the market specialists, the usage of raw materials for the production of cars is the major problem of automobile industry resulting in the increase of the expenses and costs. In this regard, it is clear that some companies succeed to find cheaper raw materials with the purpose to save expenses spent for the production of the vehicles. However, in the majority cases this approach fails because of the problems with the quality of the production of the goods with the usage of new raw materials. ...

Chevrolet Silverado also known as GMC Sierra is a product of General Motors. It is a full-size and heavy-duty pickup truck. The series of heavy-duty trucks of General Motors from which Chevrolet Silverado belongs was first introduced in 1999. Since its confinement in the General Motors till today, it passed through different innovative and more efficient advancements (Chevrolet.Ca, 2017). The variations in the engine and other equipment of the vehicle made it more successful and the prime choice for its buyers. It also managed to make its place in the market due to its holding company, General Motors that ...

Toyota Motor Corporation

The company developed in 1937. In 1938, it launched Just in Time (JIT) system. In 1991 Prius was introduced. In 2000s, products like Passo, Porte, Rush, and LS 600h were announced and with the focus on sustainability in relation to Toyota’s Way, energy efficient cars like SAI, Prius Plug-in Hybird were introduced (Toyota’s History). The company designs, manufactures, assembles, and sells passenger vehicles, minivans, and commercial vehicles along with related parts and accessories. The products that are offered by the company include hybrid cars under Prius, Corolla, Harrier; fuel cell passenger cars under the MIRAI; and conventional ...

Corporate History and Background 3

Corporate Business Strategy 4 Corporate Structure 4 Corporate Stakeholders 6 Corporate Identity, Image, and Reputation 6 Internal Communication Strategies 7 Corporate Social Responsibilities Strategies 8 Corporate Advertising Strategies 9 Media Relations Strategies 10 Investor Relations Strategies 11 Government Relations Strategies 11 Crisis Communication Strategies 12 Recommendations 13

References 14

Corporate History and Background The history of Toyota can be dated back to 1924 when the Toyoda Model G Automatic Loom was invented by Sakichi Toyoda. In 1933, Sakichi Toyoda’s son Kiichiro Toyoda started the production of Toyota automobiles and this venture was established as a division of Toyoda Automatic Loom ...

Despite the country’s small size, Japan has depicted quite contrasting economies before and after the Second World War. Up to the moment, the country has had three distinct political and economic periods; the Edo which began in 1603 and went on up to 1868, the Meiji Restoration and the final period which began after the Japan’s defeat in the Second World War in 1945 and runs up to now. Each of the three economic periods was characterized by unique factors which necessitated the government to initiate remedies so as to avoid plunging the country into an economic ...

Abstract

The American automobile company is planning to penetrate into the Spanish automobile sector with hybrid cars. The Spanish automobile industry has gained a significant attention of various global vehicle manufacturers due to a remarkable growth and lucrative contribution in the national GDP. However, the most noticeable factor is a constant increase in demand for automobiles. The increase in demand is a subsequent effect of a fall in fuel prices in Spain in the past few years. The probability of success for American car manufacturers is expected to be higher due to the current market conditions, which are feasible for ...

Lean manufacturing system

Lean manufacturing system is a systematic process that can be implemented to any well-organized system in order to pin point and eliminate the factors that are not valuable to the customer of the final product. The process of lean manufacturing systems itself was developed by Toyota Corporation (Lancaster, 6). The technique was quite effective which was very clear from the improvement in the revenues of Toyota Corporation after its implementation. And it is one of the major reasons that had helped in upliftment of Toyota Corporation from its crisis (Prakash, 4). But it seems that the application of lean ...

As requested, I have examined the current market conditions and business settings in Spain that will hopefully provide you with the significant insights regarding the decision of initiating electric car manufacturing business in Spain. The Spanish automobile industry offers us lucrative prospects not only in manufacturing electric automobiles but also presents us with an opportunity to export our products to over 130 countries around the world.

Spain has a population of 46.4 million people and its GDP stands at $1199 bn. Spain’s GDP is 1.42% as percentage share of the World’s total (World Economic Forum, 2016). Like ...

Final Analysis & Recommendations

Final Analysis & Recommendations

Generally, global competition in the vehicle manufacturing notably affects my organization in different ways. Predominantly, the automobile business is often facing aggressive price war during harsh economic situations and recession times as a result of the growing global competition. In this insight, major international automobile producers from all over the world and in particular those countries known to major in vehicle production like Japan thus tend to offer valuable vehicles at competitive prices, thus forcing other automotive companies like my organization to lower our pricing significantly. The distinctive feature of these major automotive manufacturers is the ...

VOLKSWAGEN CASE STUDY

Executive summary: Volkswagen is the leading manufacturer of car products. This company holds Volkswagen group and produced a variety of models. Recently, Volkswagen has been involved in the emission scandals of their equipped vehicles. The company vehicles are equipped with software that was cheating on emission tests. Hence, Volkswagen is the top selling brand of Volkswagen group. Since 1975 the company has been treated as world largest automaker in the world. Volkswagen has the most cars of the automobile manufacturer which has multiple revisions of model names. In this, the crisis management of the Volkswagen emission scandal has been ...

Factors that Influence Purchasing Relationship in Automobile Industry of China

Introduction The USA, Western Europe, and Japan markets for the automobiles are almost stagnating causing an increased attention and concern to the world automotive industry. They have turned their interest in China market for cars. This is associated with the fast growing economy in China unlike that of European nations and the USA. The Chinese market for cars is indeed the turning point for all auto companies. The environment is conducive to start production in China to supply the potential markets and then export from there to other world markets. This literature will focus on the purchasing relationship in ...

History and 4Ps

Founded in 1931 by Ferdinand Porsche as a design and engineering services provides for the automobile industry, Porsche Automobile Holdings SE (Porsche) is one of the largest and most successful global automobile manufacturer, famed for its innovative and stylish designs as well as leading automotive technology/engineering. The company launched Porsche 356, a branded sport car in 1948, after the success of VW Beetle, which it had designed in 1934. With access to Volkswagenwerk’s distribution and organizational infrastructure, Porsche quickly established itself in both Germany and Austria, before finally moving its production activities to its own facilities in Stuttgart. ...

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Executive Summary

Tesla Motors was developed in the year 2003 and has been the pioneer of producing the environment friendly vehicles ever since. The company has been widely known for its high performance sports cars that are equipped with the latest technology features and hinder the carbon emission, which eventually makes its vehicles environment friendly. The company is aimed towards reducing its inventory, production and distribution cost and provide high-end vehicles at low cost. The company is focused on enhancing the customer experience by means of providing them with the innovative features and design while keeping the cost low ...

Book Review of “The Politics of Air Pollution” By George Gonzalez

The Politics of Air Pollution by George Gonzalez Introduction Background George Gonzalez is a renowned assistant professor based in the Department of Political Science at the University of Miami. He has been an avid advocate of the inner political workings of the environmental policy in the United States. The book entitled the politics of air pollution delves into the establishment of policies that govern emission standards with a specialization on California as a key study. The book generally describes California as one the leading states in the promotion of automobile emission standards. As such, the book focuses on highlighting ...

Part 1

With the rise of globalization, many firms have ventured into internationalization because of the wide playing field and the quest for bigger profit. There are many challenges to international expansion and firms have experienced advantages and disadvantages in their entry to new markets. Research has shown that international expansion influences organizational performance through economies of scale, exploitation of local endowments, knowledge sharing, and other mechanisms. However, there were studies that concluded a positive relationship between international expansion and corporate performance (Delios & Beamish; Goerzen & Beamish as cited in Jiang, 2010). Moreover, a few research focused on the effect of corporate ...

Introduction

Organizations refer to entities or enterprises with distinct goals and aspirations, which operate within strict definitions or boundaries (Senior, 2002). In this perspective, organizational change is a phenomenon that occurs in every organization with a wide operation base. However, the magnitude of change is dependent on the size of the organization or the complexity of operations that the company or an organization engages in, either in products or customers. Moreover, organizational change can also be planned by the organization or unplanned. Unplanned organizational change is a result of external and internal forces that lead to the change of operations ...

Abstract

Exploring new territories for business outside known boundaries has become a preferred growth Strategy for business firms intending expansion of business operations. However, transferring business operations to new countries is not an easy proposition as it involves investigation of several factors affecting global business and establishing growth objectives in qualitative and quantitative terms. Business goals and environmental factors act as decisive elements in finalizing the country as well as formulation of strategy for expansion. The expansion goals of PPQ parts have been quantified within a period of 4 years and have been a basis for developing the strategic plans ...

Executive Summary

An in-depth analysis of the New Zealand’s auto industry reflects that establishment of an auto parts business focusing on the import and supply of all parts of Japanese made cars will be successful in the country. New Zealand greatly relies on used car imports from Japan to meet the local need for higher ownership levels. The planned venture will be located in Auckland, New Zealand. It proposes to import auto parts of Toyota and Nissan in the initial phase of market positioning. In the entry phase, the organization will particularly try to meet the needs of Toyota and ...

General Motors is one of the world’s major automobile manufacturing companies with well-accepted brands such as Chevrolet, Buick, Opel, GMC, Holden, GM Daewoo, Wuling, Vauxhall and Cadillac. The company’s largest markets are the United States, Brazil, the UK, China, Canada, Germany, and Russia. In 2009, the Japanese automobile manufacturer Toyota exceeded the number of vehicle sales for GM to become the leading auto manufacturer in the world. This success can be credited to a number of factors among them the Kaizen concept which is essentially a company culture observed at Toyota (Helper & Henderson 2014). This trend is ...

Toyota is an automobile company which is recognized for its market appeal, innovation and quality. The company has been in the motor industry for a long time and has continued to perfect its production process over the years. Despite the stiff competition in the automobile industry, Toyota has managed to stay ahead of the competition by delivering quality to the consumer, but there are still numerous opportunities in the industry that the company can exploit to increase its market share further.

Brand History and Background

Toyota motor company became established in 1937 .Toyota first started out as a division of the Toyota Loom ...

Potential Country Markets

The process of identifying the high potential countries where General Motor products can be marketed used a broad examination of several factors. The factors considered included country rating, business climate rating, 2015 forecasted market size, and the overall market potential evaluation index. The 2015 forecasted market size would help me select the nations that are importing GM products for further in-depth analysis in this paper. With the current reports, India would not be a safe country to target for GM products. The country is experiencing around medium, and the volatility in its economy would make slight changes that are ...

Visualize a particular time when you needed to acquire a new mobile phone. The processes of deciding on a particular model are usually complicated and thus as a prospective buyer, you may have opted to acquire one of the most popular brand. Another method of simplifying that decision would have been going for the brand that worked well for you in the past and opt for the newer improved version of the same. In other cases, a recommendation from a friend or just copying what your peers are using may have influenced your decision to go for a particular ...

Introduction

This paper seeks to conduct an analysis for the financial performance of Lexus in relation to other industry competitors; Jaguar, Mercedes, Porshe and BMW. In order to arrive at objective results, the analysis will compare various financial and performance metrics for the businesses. It is a purely objective analysis that will be based on the figures obtained from the annual reports of the companies.

Return on capital employed (ROCE)

Return on capital employed is a metric for a company’s profitability and the effectiveness of its capital employment. ROCE = Profits before interest and tax/Capital employed. A significantly huge amount of ROCE is a clear ...

International Market Entry Plan

Company/Product Overview. General Motors are a multinational corporation whose mother country is America. The General Motors’ business is in the automotive industry with its headquarters in Detroit, Michigan. The company’s main activities are the designing, building and selling of cars and trucks. It owns eighteen brands including Chevrolet, Cadillac, Opel, and GMC among others as illustrated by Harrison et al (17). There is no particular mission for the company, but on their website, they exist for this, “Making the best vehicles in the world needs world’s greatest employees. We take great pride on duty and care to ...

Part one solution

Ford Motor Company is an American multinational company that manufactures and sells automobiles, and recently it indulged in the production of motorcycle engines. A general environment refers to the elements existing within the society which impacts organizations and firms that operate within a given industrial segment. These elements cannot be directly curbed by the management of a company. Global segments, technological, sociocultural, legal, political, and demographic segments make up the general environment. The demographic part represents the population characteristics of a given geographical area, province, as well as a nation in the world. Also, the segment is inclusive of ...

International Automobile Manufacturing Industry

Introduction The International Automobile industry is one of the biggest industries across the world. It has a wide range and top of automobile companies in terms of production including Toyota, Volkswagen, General Motors, Nissan, and Ford. It is expected that by 2020, around 90 million cars and commercial vehicles will be produced (Barnard). Top car manufacturing countries around the world including Japan, Germany, and the USA. (Statista a) Cars, as well as commercial vehicles, are being produced across the world. The following graph shows the proportion of car and commercial vehicles producing worldwide from the year 2000 to 2015: ( ...

The case study used in this study relates to the February 13, 2014 incident in which the General Motors (GM), an automobile manufacturer and assembler, announced that it was recalling a n umber of its ignition switch vehicles. This followed reports of a series of accidents involving the company’s vehicles and resulting in at least 13 people dead. This study is based on the contents of the Volukas report in which Mary Barra, the company’s CEO, takes us through some of the efforts made by the company to avert any future occurrence. However, according Kuppler, the author ...

Driving Forces of Change

As the final waves of developments take up momentum, the manufacturers in the 21st-century face situations that could create competitive advantages or opportunities. Companies such as Toyota and Ford are making significant improvements to keep up with the 3-D technologies. The firms are looking for new techniques to respond to risks and sustain a competitive edge. This essay takes a succinct look at the trends and operations within the automobile industry. The changes that have risen in the vehicle industry emanate from several forces within and outside the corporations. The first one is the rapid emergence of new production ...

Toyota Prius has redefined the automobile industry with its daring mass production of a car hybrid never witnessed before. It is 19 years of success for Toyota for its popular brand since its launch in 1997. Today, the company is fighting to maintain the market share following the launch of various competing car models. The competition in the car industry continues to stir war among the motor giants with other c-class cars entry in the highly polarized market. Every car manufacturer is fighting for a slice of the market share to be able to remain relevant and maintain brand ...

Introduction

Porter’s competitive strategies determine the generic strategy implemented by an organization to penetrate the target market. There are mainly three generic strategies under Porter’s theory. These are cost leadership, product differentiation and focus strategy. Focus strategy can be further divided into focus differentiation and cost differentiation strategies. Cost leadership and product differentiation strategies help companies to target large market segment, whereas focus (differentiation/cost) strategy helps businesses to target small market segment (Daft, Murphy, & Willmott, 2010, p. 58-60). Porter’s competitive strategies can be applied to the automobile industry as there are a number of organizations that are ...

German Automobile Industry Overview

In spite of the slowdown in many big markets like China and Western Europe, the German automobile industry is performing strongly over the past few years. In 2014, the German automobile industry generated a turnover of 367.9 billion Euros, the highest ever achieved by the industry . Out of this, almost two-thirds of the revenue was generated through exports and the rest from the domestic market, which shows the export focused nature of the industry . The reasons for this strong show are many that includes the global acceptance and appreciation of German engineering, quality of products and the brand value. ...

Industry Analysis-Tesla Motors Company

Industry Analysis-Tesla Motors Company

Overview

The automobile industry is a very cyclical business. It is closely tied to the economical prices and cycles as well as other key macro factors. In comparison to the traditional segment, the alternative fuel segment has benefited heavily from the increasing prices of oil (Hoffmann & Coste-Manière, 2012). They are highly dependent on the technological or the political environment regarding supporting different government innovations and initiatives that can drive the prices of vehicles down. After almost a century of fueling vehicles using diesel and gasoline, the automobile industry is in a sharp transition towards obtaining ...

The automotive industry in the USA began in the 1890s and grew to become one of the largest in the world, behind Japan and China. However, the industry had its lowest manufacture of about 5.7million automobiles in 2009 because of the 2008-2010 crisis. This crisis was due to high oil prices and increased competition from foreign manufacturers. Also the increased knowledge on climate change and the difficulty in accessing the credit market by consumers led to reduced purchases. The downturn that occurred negatively affected the automobile industry; consumer spending decreased because of lack of confidence in the economy and ...

Introduction

Supply chain management primarily entails the coordination of functions within an organization as well as tactics used to execute those functions. Also, it involves tasks’ coordination across the partners participating in the supply chain with the principal objective of ensuring improved organizational performance. The definition of the supply chain clearly depicts the nature of the coordination between the partners involved in the business and appreciates the primary purpose of the supply chain management. Apparently, this approach aims at improving organizations’ as well as the individual performance (Lee et al., 116). There are two main components of the supply chain, ...

Motivation for the Study

Many automobile manufacturers in car producing countries are taking an interest in the renewable fuels as an alternative energy source for vehicles. This is due to the challenges caused by the difference in demand and supply of conventional energy sources like fossil fuels and the environmental degradation associated with them (Liu, 2015). Renewable fuels are more efficient than the current fuels used to power vehicles and their use will significantly reduce the fuel costs incurred by consumers. Renewable energy sources cause minimal environmental pollution, and its utilization will reduce the world’s pollution levels. The use of renewable fuels ...

Analysis of the organisational profile of Lane Automotive and SWOT Analysis

Abstract This paper uses the company websites, newspaper publications etc. to research on the organisational profile and the current company’s position of Lane Automotive. Lane Automotive has secured a brand name in the Automotive Industry. The organisational analysis enables us to know the strength and the opportunities it has to help it maximise its profits also the threat that needs to be kept under check and the weaknesses that needs it to overcome. The research suggests that Lane has its strong brand name and popularity as well as sponsorships of big racing events as its strength, the market ...

The Tesla Model 3 is all electric, four –door compact sedan, which is designed and manufactured by the Tesla Motors. The model was introduced into the market on 31st March 2016. Initial production, as well as deliveries, are planned to occur at the end of 2017 (Teslamotors.com). Tesla Motors plans to sell this model in a couple of markets, such as Brazil, India, South Korea, Singapore, Ireland, and South Africa. The major specifications that the model is expected to have include supercharging capability, rear wheel drive, rear and front trucks, and a minimum of 215 miles range (Gold). Tesla ...

Figure 1: Vehicle assembly plant (Source: Library of Congress, 1923)

Identification of the photograph

The photo selected shows a vehicle assembly plant. It is a digital image retrieved from the Library of Congress image gallery created on May 7, 1923. The photograph acts as a good representation of the impact of the industrial revolution to the Americans. The selection of the photo was based on its importance in revealing the readiness of the American people to practice innovations and promote growth in the process of industrialization. The United States ranks the top position regarding industrialization because of the ability of the country to ...

Introduction

The term Artificial Intelligence (AI) refers to a technology whereby intelligent agents are studied and created (Poole and Mackworth 9). In this case an intelligent agent is a structure that senses its surroundings and acts in such a manner as to maximise its chances of success. The origin of AI was in 1956 where John McCarthy described it as a science of creating thinking machines (intelligent machines). The technology comprises of eight different areas that are currently researched on and are wide in their own rights. The fields are: expert systems; decision support and planning; speech recognition; natural language processing; computer aided instruction; ...

Introduction

Globalization refers to the integration of economic activities with local and foreign companies competing in the host country. It involves the liberalization of the markets so that trade can be conducted freely. It brings in technological advancement into a country and the customer benefits greatly since the transaction costs have been reduced.

Globalization has led to the increase of multinational corporations in the world market due to the liberalization of trade policies and practices. The spread of globalization is based on the capitalist theory of free trade. With globalization there are winners and losers. The bilateral and multilateral trade agreements ...