The goal of this paper is to provide a comprehensive discussion of six economic indicators and their impact on the automobile industry. The indicators to be reviewed are personal income, unemployment, retail sales, auto sales, the inflation rate, and Gross Domestic Product. A brief history of the auto industry, an industry overview, and a SWOTT analysis will be presented. In addition, each indicator will be defined along with the current status of each. Forecasts of each indicator will also be given. Lastly, strategic initiatives will be afforded based on how the forecasts will impact the auto industry.
Industry Overview
History
Around the world, more than 100 years ago, numerous men were working on motorized vehicles, unbeknownst to each other. When Nikolous Otto patented the four-stroke gasoline engine in 1876, the automotive industry began. This type of engine is still used today. The United States industry, which began in 1896, gave the automobile a Midwestern American flavor (Wright, 1996).
Brush Electric Bus
News of the Industry, April 1947
English: A graph of the recession in the United St...The majority of men building cars in that era were from rural backgrounds including Henry Ford, Ransom Olds, and David Dunbar Buick (Wright, 1996). While the first production car built in the United States was produced in Massachusetts, the men creating it were from Illinois (Wright, 1996). The world has changed drastically since that time as the automobile has allowed us to go where we want when we want. Not only has the automobile expanded our geographic boundaries, it has created industries where there were none such as auto parts, gasoline, fast-food restaurants, drive-in movies, and even drive-in funeral homes (Wright, 1996).
Auto Industry Overview
Today, people purchase cars to define who they are. There is an emotional relationship with our vehicles that we do not have with any other type of machinery and the three surviving American auto companies, Ford Motor...