Propulsión. Influencia del tren propulsivo

The market will ultimately deliver more efficient cars, trucks, and air-planes. Indeed, it already has begun to do so with the introduction of doubled-efficiency hybrid vehicles in the past few years and Boeing’s 7E7 in 2007–08. But will it be U.S. or foreign manufacturers who reap the ben-efit of this market transition? If U.S. business and political leaders are not decisive now, we could end up replacing imported oil with imported cars and airplanes. And while competitive global markets will ultimately bring efficient fleets to U.S. buyers, this could take so long that the U.S.

automotive sector exits just as its successors enter. Let’s therefore recap the business and policy challenge before we move on to the policies that can help business leaders to address it timely.

The fundamental business problem in U.S. automaking is the disparate financial strength of the Big Three and their competitors. The Big Three simply do not have the ability to invest quickly in an entirely new and properly broad product line, even at the lower product development and production costs we’ve described, without giving up one of the strategic R&D programs they’re already conducting. Of course the Big Three can, should, and do incorporate lighter and stronger parts into their existing product lines and new platforms, but that’s incremental change, while the coming global shift in automotive technology and markets requires radi-cal and rapid change. Neither competitive forces nor the oil-market con-cerns discussed on pp. 8–25 will wait for business-as-usual.

By contrast, Toyota, and to a lesser degree Honda, Nissan, and others, have the financial strength and the business strategy to adopt holistic bundles of new technology rapidly in new product lines. They continue to have the benefits of their domestic markets, access to lower-cost capi-tal, and the keiretsu supply-chain system, plus the lower-cost, high-quality lean manufacturing system made famous by Toyota and the support of their domestic and regional markets.

Korean automakers should not be overlooked. They’ve gained more points of global market share in the 1990s than any other country and are consid-ered a disruptive force in the automobile market.⁶⁹⁴They have succeeded in the way Toyota pioneered, by entry into the lowest-profit-margin segment of the business, the small car market. Like Toyota, their strategy is to lever-age that position into the higher-margin segments. What better way than with breakthrough technology? The same opportunity is doubtless occur-ring to India’s burgeoning automakers.

694. Christensen & Raynor 2003, p.61.

Sooner or later, the market will provide super-efficient cars, trucks, and airplanes.

The opening moves have already been made to determine who will sell them.

The game will move swiftly.

Foreign rivals now enjoy a lead from their national policies.

The United States must catch up—

not by copycat effi-ciency mandates, but by policy innova-tions tailored to the U.S. business conditions we’ve just described.

Neither

competitive forces nor oil-market concerns will wait for business-as-usual.

If we don't act soon, the invisible hand will become the invisible fist Implementation

695. Cai 2003; Fu 2004.

696. China Economic Net 2004.

697. Zhengzheng 2004;

Agencies 2004a.

698. Blanchard 2004.

698a. Wonacott 2004.

699. Bradsher 2003.

700. European automakers are implementing a volun-tary standard of 140 grams of CO₂per km by 2008 and negotiating a standard likely to be 120 gCO₂/km for 2012. European emissions averaged 166 gCO₂/km in 2002, down 11% from 186 in 1995. That progress reflects mainly dieselization, but Chancellor Schröder, at the request of German automakers, recently asked the EU to accelerate dramatically the Euro-5 standards that will reduce fine-particle emissions.

701. Fulton 2004.

China, Europe, and Japan all have the advantage of technology-forcing regulations that stimulate demand for new,

more efficient cars.

The Chinese have the potential to build a new automobile industry from scratch, and they show every sign of preparing to leapfrog the West.

To appreciate the power of a massive domestic market with patriotic buy-ing behavior, overseen by a farsighted central policy, consider China’s growth in the technology sector. Over the past five years, China has sus-tained a 40% annual growth rate in high-tech exports, and now manufac-tures 35% of the world’s cellphones. China has passed the U.S. to become the world’s largest mobile phone market (as noted on p. 6, note 46, it has more cellphone users than the U.S. has people), and China Mobile and China Unicom are the numbers one and three largest mobile carriers globally.⁶⁹⁵

The explosive growth of Chinese automotive manufacturing capability is already positioning it as a tremendous threat to U.S. automakers (p. 135).⁶⁹⁶In 2003 alone, sales of Chinese-made vehicles in China grew by more than one-third (p. 2). Not only are Chinese companies investing in automaking, but General Motors plans to invest $3 billion in its Chinese operations over the next three years,⁶⁹⁷and GM’s competitors are similarly ambitious. Yet China’s intention to serve more than its home and regional market could hardly be plainer: the State Development and Reform Commission’s 2 June 2004 white paper (p. 135) says, “Before 2010, our country will become an important vehicle making nation, locally made products will basically satisfy domestic demand, and we will enter the international market in a big way.”⁶⁹⁸Shanghai Automotive Industry Group already hopes to partner with MG Rover Group Ltd., buy Ssangyong (Korea’s fourth-biggest automaker), and become one of the world’s top ten automakers.^698a

China, Europe, and Japan all have the advantage of technology-forcing regulations that stimulate demand for new, more efficient cars. These rules appear to reflect some rivalry, and the gap between these regulations and U.S. rules is widening. China’s 2004 white paper requires that the “average fuel consumption for newly assembled passenger vehicles by the year 2010 will be reduced by at least 15 percent compared to the level of 2003”;

this applies better-than-U.S. minimum standards to every new vehicle (not just their average) and bars used-car imports.⁶⁹⁹European automakers, as an alternative to legislated standards, have voluntarily committed to the equivalent of 39 mpg by 2008 (25% lower fuel intensity) and are consider-ing 46 mpg (another 15% intensity drop) by 2012.⁷⁰⁰ New legislation in Japan requires 23% fuel-economy gains during 1995–2010, to levels up to 44 mpg depending on vehicle class, via the “Top Runner” program (p. 45, note 225) committing all new vehicles to approach the most fuel-frugal vehicle in their class.⁷⁰¹Canada’s Climate Action Plan, with 2004 bipartisan endorsement, promises 25% mpg gains by 2010 despite the close integra-tion of its auto industry with that of the U.S.

Implementation If we don't act soon, the invisible hand will become the invisible fist

In striking contrast, no increase is contemplated in the U.S. 27.5-mpg average car standard—passed in 1975 and first effective in MY1984—

and the 2003 1.5-mpg increase in U.S. light-truck standards to just 22.2 mpg for MY2007 will yield little or no actual gain.⁷⁰²This growing gap hardly bodes well for U.S. exports to an increasingly integrated global market. As we’ll show next, efficiency standards aren’t the only or even the best way to improve fleet efficiency, but if, for whatever cause, new American cars’ efficiency continues to stagnate, then most foreign buyers, and an increasing share of U.S. buyers, simply won’t want them.

However, a key competitive opportunity remains as unexploited by for-eign as by U.S. policymakers. While the U.S., Japan, and Europe are all providing generous R&D funding for the fuel cell as the next-generation engine, all of their official programs give far more limited attention to the near-term practical potential for a lighter, stronger platform and body to get to fuel cells sooner and solve the hydrogen storage problem (p. 233), while saving far more gasoline and diesel fuel meanwhile. The United States has at least as great technological breadth and depth in advanced materials as Japan and Europe, and a more entrepreneurial flexible mar-ket system for rapidly exploiting that capability.

Capital quickly migrates to those companies that demonstrate the ability to earn superior returns. The invisible hand of the market, as described by Adam Smith, was an early attempt to describe the movement of

capital in society. The speed of capital migration has accelerated of late, so the invisible hand will feel more like the invisible fist when it hits those automakers that fall behind in the competitive race for the next-generation vehicle.

Do U.S. business leaders and policymakers really want to wait for the market to deliver the next generation of efficient mobility via leisurely meandering, or should we enact the few critical strategy and policy shifts that would transform the market more quickly and potentially save and revitalize the U.S. transportation manufacturing sector? As we debate this, consider that the entire extra business investment needed to reach ~77%

market capture in 2025 by superefficient cars and light trucks and ~70%

by efficient heavy trucks—some $70 billion spread over a decade or two—

is what the United States now spends directly every seven months to buy foreign oil that’s largely wasted.

China’s intention to serve more than its home and regional market could hardly be plainer:

“Before 2010, our country will become an important vehicle making nation, locally made prod-ucts will basically satisfy domestic demand,

and we will enter the international market in a big way.”

The entire extra business investment needed to reach

~77% market capture in 2025 by super-efficient cars and light trucks and

~70% by efficient heavy trucks—

some $70 billion spread over a decade or two—is what the United States now spends directly every seven months to buy foreign oil that’s largely wasted.

702. That’s because the higher standard would be roughly offset by a proposed extension of the current law’s “flex-fuel”

loophole, which credits ethanol-blend-capable vehicles with fuel savings (up to 1.2 mpg for MY1993–2004) even if they never use alternative fuel blends (other than normal oxygenates); very few actually do. Sales in the CAFE-exempt >8,500-lb GWVR category, such as Hummer, have also increased since Oak Ridge National Laboratory found 5.8 million such exempt

“heavy light trucks” on the road at the end of 1999, accounting for 9% of light trucks’ total fuel use (NHTSA, undated).