Unreadable on my mobile phone. A bunch of warning hotlinking images came up.
Understandable on a mobile device, there are numerous images with links to Google Earth, etc. All photo's in link I posted cannot be copied so that I could place here, photo's were taken in May time-frame of this year. I didn't detect anything to worry about in that link, that could cause issues with your computer.
The person who created this page has an agenda. I don't think these massive car parks at or near ports are anything new. With globalization there are fewer factories producing cars for the world which equates to high volumes of outputs leading to larger car parks.
There could be a few simple reasons on these large parks. An engineering hold at a factory requiring vehicles already built to be reworked or fixed. Second at the sea ports, these cars are shipped on ro-ro's which which literally hold thousands of cars, one of these parking lots may hold the cargo for one ship so the vehicles can get to their detination market.
If these lots get stagnent and vehicles are held for long periods I'll be worried as the carrying costs for the car makers is great! Any good bean counter would not let this contune for any period. I ave a feeling these are just carfully chosen shots over time to make things look horrible.
Are things great? Heck no, but the sky is not falling as implied on this page.
The person who created this page has an agenda. I don't think these massive car parks at or near ports are anything new. With globalization there are fewer factories producing cars for the world which equates to high volumes of outputs leading to larger car parks.
There could be a few simple reasons on these large parks. An engineering hold at a factory requiring vehicles already built to be reworked or fixed. Second at the sea ports, these cars are shipped on ro-ro's which which literally hold thousands of cars, one of these parking lots may hold the cargo for one ship so the vehicles can get to their detination market.
If these lots get stagnent and vehicles are held for long periods I'll be worried as the carrying costs for the car makers is great! Any good bean counter would not let this contune for any period. I ave a feeling these are just carfully chosen shots over time to make things look horrible.
Are things great? Heck no, but the sky is not falling as implied on this page.
You could be right Hank.
What bothered me, is that those photo's are kind of consistent to what I've noticed in the Detroit Metro area. Cars/SUV's/Trucks are stock piled all over the place in my area, and all the Dealer lots are jam packed with same. Issue that concerns me is that when stock piles grow this high, they cut prices drastically to move product. This results in very low profit, or loss, which means many things, like no employee raises, layoffs, etc., etc., it can snowball really bad.
What bothered me, is that those photo's are kind of consistent to what I've noticed in the Detroit Metro area. Cars/SUV's/Trucks are stock piled all over the place in my area, and all the Dealer lots are jam packed with same. Issue that concerns me is that when stock piles grow this high, they cut prices drastically to move product. This results in very low profit, or loss, which means many things, like no employee raises, layoffs, etc., etc., it can snowball really bad.
I think in reality you need to reset your mind a little. During the 2009 timeframe the Detroit three purges many dealers. Overall sales numbers have almost rebounded to almost rebounded 2006/7 levels. The detroit overall maket share percentages have moved slighly but not an overall dramatic move. With that being said , dealers should have more inventory since sales are comparable and there are fewer dealers that these sales are going through...this equates to more unsold units on dealers lots. In fact these dealers lots have proabably gotten larger. As for regional depot lots there can be many explainations, there may infact be an temporary storage explosion. For example GM may be holding Cruises in these lots since they don't want inventory that dealers can't sell sitting on their lots, a type of PR/perception thing. I am sure once a supply of recall parts is ready the influx would be quickly shipped to delaers where the serivce departments can do the service and then put the for sale sign in the window.
In my opinion I think vehicle sales will continue to be good/healthy. Fact of the matter is that so much individual purchasing was delayed duing the 2009 timeframe there is almost an atrificial pent up demand for new cars even today. Will it continue to to sell at a 13-14million units per year or even touch 16 million? probably not for a long time but I'd bet that we won't see a sub 12 million unit year for a very long time.
For me the tell tale sign to watch in the auto industry for direciton is leasing. FCA now has their funky get a car after a model year offer for leasing....that is great! Instead of selling two cars FCA sells two for ever one they lease--what a great idea. They also provide an infusion of good low milage, fairly new cars for their dealers to sell...used cars such as this offer a better profit margin for the dealers than do the new cars. If we see leasing offers dry up like it did in 2008/2009 then we are in trouble.
This is just my skewed of the auto world. I may be toally missing the stauts of the industry at this point but I see more good then bad happening for the companies, employees, suppliers, and customers then there was five years ago.
Appreciate your input Hank, always great to get opinions from others.
Franky, I think I read too much on the internet, and watch too much news while monitoring the Stock Market. Just depresses the crap out of me. I do know that GM is forcing their Engineering Department to take 2 wks off this summer, but that's just because of the big can of worms at GM. I certainly hope things are improving overall, Michigan certainly hasn't shown it in the job market yet.
[This message has been edited by California Kid (edited 05-19-2014).]
Appreciate your input Hank, always great to get opinions from others.
Franky, I think I read too much on the internet, and watch too much news while monitoring the Stock Market. Just depresses the crap out of me. I do know that GM is forcing their Engineering Department to take 2 wks off this summer, but that's just because of the big can of worms at GM. I certainly hope things are improving overall, Michigan certainly hasn't shown it in the job market yet.
Ayup that makes sense, send the department on a vacation that really should be working 24/7 on recall problems to fix them.
Sure, Sure.
What would make more sense send the engineers on a vacation or the line workers? I know when I worked for GM in the late 70s we only kept a 2 month ahead inventory of cars and then they would start layoffs of factory workers to fix that. Something about not creating a glut of cars at the factory lots or places like this. now I understand that all manufacturers want to be ahead of any serge of sales like this weekend coming but WTF is wrong with GM and others management today. send all the plants line workers home for a couple of weeks, they used to, I was laid off more than working in the 70s at GM, and don't pull the job bank BS it wasn't there for people with less than workers with 5 years seniority, you didn't get paid when you were laid off, I remember that time very well and producing more products than could be sold in a production year of any product just does not make any sense to me. No matter when they are made or what they are making.
GM management and all auto manufacturers are no better than the rest of the people who said,
"Home prices will never go down",
"Banks can't be allowed to fail",
"The economy is recovering".
Steve
------------------ Technology is great when it works, and one big pain in the ass when it doesn't
