
• PARTI
Strategies: Automotive Manufacturers Quo Vadis?
1 Introduction
1.1 Problem Statement
Today, there are nearly 1 billion cars on the road worldwide. Since 2007, when global
automotive production stood at its peak of 72 million vehicles, the demand for new cars
has steadily decreased. Due to the global economic crisis, a sales decrease of 15 to 20%
was projected for the year 2009. But, due in large part to government sponsored initiatives
(such as Scrap Premium in Germany and Cash for Clunkers in The US) sales of new cars
only dropped by 3%, to 67 million units:
1
Above all the global automotive industry has
remained a strong growth engin ...