Customer Reviews

Time for a Model Change: Re-engineering the Global Automotive Industry

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In Time for a Model Change, two industry veterans tell why the modern auto industry is in such sad shape. As the globe warms and oil is burned up, we need innovative cars that push the envelope with new technologies, such as plug-in hybrids and electrics.

Yet the carmakers struggle to stay afloat, with no money to spend on such a drastic model change. And no strategic plan to follow even if they had the money. So instead of innovation, we get a steady proliferation of the same old models, with minor variations, all of the carmakers putting out their "me too" offerings that drive up expenses, drive down sale prices, and drive the carmakers out of business.

Time for a Model Change suggests a solution. Unbundle the production of cars. Let the carmakers build to their strengths. Italian carmakers, for example, should not try to compete with their own vertically integrated line of cars. Instead, focus on car bodies, doing the styling that they can do better than others. And so on.

Reflecting their connection with The Economist magazine, the authors of Time for a Model Change make their case thoughtfully and carefully. The many graphs, diagrams, and pictures (black and white only) throughout the book add a great deal to a reader's understanding of the industry. This book, though quite sophisticated in its analysis, will not be too difficult for the general reader.

My only complaint about the book, if I even call it that, is the feeling of doom and gloom that pervades it. Things are not that bad. But there is no question that the "industry of industries" will be changing, one way or another. As related technologies continue to improve, someone is going to figure out how to make money in this huge industry.

This is an analysis of the world wide automobile industry by a pair of close observers who are outside the direct employment of the auto makers.

The auto industry is huge, it's been developing for a hundred. In addition there is a huge supplementary industry in the form of supplying oil, building highways, insuring, repairing, racing, and hundreds of other professions.

The problems forseen by the authors seem so obvious that you wonder why the automoile companies don't see it. Of course they probably do, but their senior management couldn't say anything that might affect their stock prices. If they did, they would get sued by everyone who lost money on their stock.

This is an excellent book on the automotive industry and in effect on our whole economy.

This book is for anyone who has a true interest in the history of automobiles and in strategic thinking on how to improve the industry. There is a generous review of the sales and service sector.