Unsold Cars Around the World
This is circulating via email — pretty insane . . .
Nissan has announced plans to cut its Sunderland workforce by 1,200. Thousands of unsold cars are stored around the factory’s test track
Honda is halting production at its Swindon plant in April and May, extending the two-month closure announced before Christmas to four months. Honda and Japanese rival Toyota are both cutting production in Japan and elsewhere. Pictured, Hondas await export at a pier in Tokyo
Earlier this week Jaguar Land Rover said 450 British jobs would go
The open car storage areas in Corby , Northamptonshire, are reaching full capacity
Imported cars stored at Sheerness open storage area awaiting delivery to dealers
Newly imported cars fill the 150-acre site at the Toyota distribution centre in Long Beach , California
The build-up of imported cars at the port of Newark , New Jersey
Stocks of Ford trucks in Detroit , Michigan
New cars jam the dockside in the port of Valencia in Spain
Peugeot cars await shipment to Italian dealers at the port of Civitavecchia
Unsold cars at Avonmouth Docks near Bristol
With many manufacturers on extended Christmas shutdown, the number of cars rolling off production lines in December fell 47.5% to just 53,823
Thousands of new cars are stored on the runway at the disused Upper Heyford airbase near Bicester, Oxfordshire, on December 18, 2008.
Sales of new cars in the UK have slumped to a 12-year-low and production of cars at Honda in Swindon has been halted for a unprecedented four-month period because of the collapse in global sales and represents the longest continuous halt in production at any UK car plant. The announcement comes on a day when the EU’s Industry Commissioner Guenter Verheugen warned the outlook for the European car industry was ‘brutal’ and predicted not all European manufacturers would survive the crisis.
http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/84313837/getty-images-news
February 28th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
I don’t know if I buy this. Every time I drive down 95 from NY to DC, there are massive lots at the docks that are filled with cars. Besides, what else would these huge lots fill their space with? The Nissan racetrack might be a little disconcerting depending on when that picture was taken.
But this might become a reality: http://www.marinelog.com/DOCS/NEWSMMIX/2009feb00250.html
February 28th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
Buy it…
http://www.upi.com/Business_News/2009/02/25/Toyota_rents_ship_for_unsold_cars/UPI-10501235567085/
Toyota rents ship for unsold cars
February 28th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
The new tax increases proposed in the President’s budget will not stimulate capital purchases. The carbon tax and trade initiatives will hit middle income families as well. Corporations do not pay taxes, they collect them and pass them on to the government, i.e., they will pass these taxes on to all consumers.
In as much as this country needs to address healthcare etc., layering on these social programs in a deep recession will be disastrous.
February 28th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
the recession makes addressing healthcare MORE vital now than ever. millions of people are losing their health insurance when they lose their jobs. removing the tie between health insurance and employment and moving to a single payer system will lower total healthcare costs across the economy, stimulate job creation by employers (one of the reasons why the 2002-2007 expansion was weak in job creation compared to the 90s was the move in the 90s to HMOs and the increase in healthcare costs this decade), and unleash a wave of entrepreneurship as more people are free to start their own business without having to lose their healthcare to do so
February 28th, 2009 at 7:19 pm
A great time to buy a new car. I walked into an Acura dealer last week at 10:30. The lot, and the streets around the lot, were jammed with inventory. I was the only customer, and there were six salesmen, all looking like they had come from central casting. At that point, I knew exactly how an antelope feels surrounded by a starving pride of lions.
February 28th, 2009 at 7:20 pm
Maybe the manufacturers should stop building cars for a while? To common sensical?
@DisciplinedInvesting said “In as much as this country needs to address healthcare etc., layering on these social programs in a deep recession will be disastrous.”
Yet when we were [supposedly] flush as an economy, it was also said that then wasn’t the time to expand such programs because doing so would end the good times and cause the party to crash! You can’t have it both ways. If THEN wasn’t a good time and NOW isn’t a good time, WHEN would be a good time????
February 28th, 2009 at 7:26 pm
Bruce, the link I included is the same story in your link.
March 1st, 2009 at 12:48 pm
This is what Marx identified as a “crisis of overproduction”. It means that capitalist society is unable to fully take advantage of its productive capacity because of its inherent contradictions. In a rational society, we would be crushing old, inefficient, polluting cars and replacing them as fast as possible with new, clean, efficient ones. Society as a whole would be richer and healthier.
Same with housing. There is no “housing crisis”. In fact, huge numbers of new houses have been built during the bubble period. On the whole, they are probably more energy efficient with better windows and insulation than a lot of old run down housing stock which could be knocked down in favor of the new construction. Rather, the so-called housing crisis has nothing to do with housing. It has everything to do with the contradictions of capitalism.
March 2nd, 2009 at 9:37 am
Those pics remind of the saying, “There is never just one cockroach.”
Those cars are what you see when you move the fridge