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Where the World's Unsold Cars Go To Die
In the past several years, one of the topics covered in detail on these pages has been the surge in such gimmicks designed to disguise lack of demand and end customer sales, used extensively by US automotive manufacturers, better known as "channel stuffing", of which General Motors is particularly guilty and whose inventory at dealer lots just hit a new record high. But did you know that when it comes to flat or declining sales and stagnant end demand, channel stuffing is merely the beginning?
Presenting...
Where the World's Unsold Cars Go To Die (courtesy of Vincent Lewis' Unsold Cars)
Above is just a few of the thousands upon thousands of unsold cars at Sheerness, United Kingdom. Please do see this on Google Maps....type in Sheerness, United Kingdom. Look to the west coast, below River Thames next to River Medway. Left of A249, Brielle Way.
Timestamp: Friday, May 16th, 2014.
There are hundreds of places like this in the world today and they keep on piling up...
THE WORLDS UNSOLD CAR STOCKPILE
Houston...We have a problem!...Nobody is buying brand new cars anymore! Well they are, but not on the scale they once were. Millions of brand new unsold cars are just sitting redundant on runways and car parks around the world. There, they stay, slowly deteriorating without being maintained.
Below is an image of a massive car park at Swindon, United Kingdom, with thousands upon thousands of unsold cars just sitting there with not a buyer in sight. The car manufacturers have to buy more and more land just to park their cars as they perpetually roll off the production line.
There is proof that the worlds recession is still biting and wont let go. All around the world there are huge stockpiles of unsold cars and they are being added to every day. They have run out of space to park all of these brand new unsold cars and are having to buy acres and acres of land to store them.
NOTE:
The images on this webpage showing all of these unsold cars are just a very small portion of those around the world. There are literally thousands of these "car parks" rammed full of unsold cars in practically every country on the planet. Just in case you were wondering, these images have not been Photoshopped, they are the real deal!
Its hard to believe that there are so many unsold cars in the world but its true. The worse part is that the amount of unsold cars keeps on getting bigger every day.
It would be fair to say that it is becoming a mechanical epidemic of epic proportions. If anybody from outer space is reading this webpage, we here on Earth have too many cars, why not come and buy a few hundred thousand of them for your own planet! (sorry but this is all I can think of)
Below is shown just a few of the 57,000 cars (and growing) that await delivery from their home in the Port of Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A. With Google Maps look South of Broening Hwy in Dundalk for the massive expanse of space where all these cars are parked up.
The car industry would never sell these cars at massive reductions in their prices to get rid of them, no they still want every buck. If they were to price these cars for a couple of thousand they would sell them. However, nobody would then buy any expensive cars and then they would end up being unsold. Its quite a pickle we have gotten ourselves into.
Below is shown an image of the Nissan test track in Sunderland United Kingdom. Only it is no longer being used, reason...there are too many unsold cars parked up on it! The amount of cars keeps on piling up on it until its overflowing. Nissan then acquires more land to park up the cars, as they continue to come off the production line.
UPDATE: Currently May 16th, 2014, all of these cars at the Nissan Sunderland test track have disappeared? Now I don't believe they have all suddenly been sold. I would guess they may have been taken away and recycled to make room for the next vast production run.
Indeed next to that test track and adjacent to the Nissan factory, they are collating again as shown on the Google Maps image below. So where did the last lot go? This is not an employees car park by the way.
None of the images on this webpage are of ordinary car parks at shopping malls, football matches etc. Trust me, they are just mountains and mountains of brand spanking new unsold cars. There is no real reason why you should be driving an old clunker now is there?
The car industry cannot stop making new cars because they would have to close their factories and lay off tens of thousands of employees. This would further add to the recession. Also the domino effect would be catastrophic as steel manufactures would not sell their steel. All the tens of thousands of places where car components are made would also be effected, indeed the world could come to a grinding halt.
Below is shown just a small area of a gigantic car park in Spain where tens of thousands of cars just sit and sunbathe all day.
They are also piling up at the port of Valencia in Spain as seen below. They are either waiting to be exported to...nowhere or have been imported...to go nowhere.
Tens of thousands of cars are still being made every week but hardly any of them are being sold. Nearly every household in developed countries already has a car or even two or three cars parked up on their driveway as it is.
Below is an image of thousands upon thousands of unsold cars parked up on a runway near St Petersburg in Russia. They are all imported from Europe, they are all then parked up and they are all then left to rot. Consequently, the airport is now unusable for its original purpose.
The cycle of buying, using, buying using has been broken, it is now just a case of "using" with no buying. Below is an image of thousands of unsold cars parked up on an disused runway at Upper Heyford, Bicester, Oxfordshire. They are seriously running out of space to store these cars.
It is a sorry state of affairs and there is no answer to it, solutions don't exist. So the cars just keep on being manufactured and keep on adding to the millions of unsold cars already sitting redundant around the world.
Below are parked tens of thousands of cars at Royal Portbury Docks, Avonmouth, near Bristol in the United Kingdom. If you look on Google Maps and scan around the area at say 200ft you will see nothing but parked up unsold cars. They are absolutley everywhere in that area practically every open space has unsold cars parked up on it.
Below is that same area in Avonmouth, UK, but zoomed out. Every gray space that you see is filled with unsold cars. Anyone want to hazard a guess at how many are there...
As it is, there are more cars than there are people on the planet with an estimated 10 billion roadworthy cars in the world today.
We literally cannot make enough of them. Below are seen just a few of the thousands of Citroen's parked up at Corby, Northamptonshire in England. They are being added to daily, imported from France but with nowhere else to go once they arrive.
So there they sit, brand spanking new cars, all with a couple of miles on the clock that was consummate with them being driven to their car parks. Below is the latest May 2014 Google Maps image of unsold cars in Corby, Northamptonshire.
Manufacturing more cars than can be sold is against all logic, logistics and economics but it continues day after day, week after week, month after month, year in year out.
Below is shown a recent (April 2014) screen grab from Google Maps of the Italian port of Civitavecchia. All those little specks are a few thousand brand new unsold Peugeots. Just collecting dust and maybe a bit of salty sea spray!
Below, all nice and shiny but with nowhere to go. Red and white and black and silver, purple, pink and blue, all the colors of the rainbow and be they all brand new. Indeed all the colors of the rainbow are down there on those cars, making pretty mosaics, montages of color and still life. Maybe that is all they will now ever be, surreal urban art of the techno production age. Magnificent metal boxes, wasting space and saving grace, all sitting still, because its business at mill.
All around the world these cars just keep on piling up, there is no end in sight. The economy shouts out quite loud that nobody has the money anymore to spend on a new car. The reason being that they are making their "old" cars go on a lot longer. But we cannot stop making them, soon we will run out of space to park them. We are nearly running out of space to drive them that's for sure!
Below, more cars mount up in the port of Valencia in Spain. They will not be exported as there is nowhere for them to go, so they just sit and rot in their colorful droves.
Gone are the days when the family would have a new car every year, they are now keeping what they have got. It may be fair to say that some families still get a new car every year but its the majority that now do not.
The results are in these images, hundreds of thousands if not millions of cars around the world are driven from their factories, parked up and left.
Could we say that these cars have been left to rot! Maybe, as these cars will certainly rot if they are not bought, driven and cared for. It does not look like they will be sold any day soon, many of them have been standing for over 12 months or even longer and this is detrimental to the car.
Below, as far as the eye can see, right into the background, cars, cars and more cars. But what's beyond the horizon? Have a guess...Yes that's right...even more cars! All brand new but with no homes to go to. Do you think they will ever start giving them away, that may be the only radical solution. Who knows, you could soon be getting a free car with every packet of cornflakes.
When a car is left standing idle, all the oil sinks to the bottom of the sump, and then corrosion begins to set in on all the internal engine parts where the oil has drained away.
Cold corrosion is when condensation builds up in the cylinders and rust forms in the bores. The engines would then start to seize and would need to be professionally freed before they could be started. Also the tires start to lose air and the batteries start to go flat, indeed the detrimental list goes on and on.
So the longer they sit there the worse it slowly becomes for them. What is the answer to this? Well they need to be sold and that just isn't happening.
The epidemic is not improving, it is getting worse. Car manufactureres are constantly coming out with new models with the latest technology in them. Hence prospective buyers of, for example, a new Citroen Xsara Picasso want the latest model, not last years model. Hence all the unsold Citroen Xsara Picasso cars from the previous year will now have even lesser chance of being sold.
The problems then just keep on mounting up. In the end, the unsold cars that are say 2 years old will have no alternative but to be either crushed up, dismantled and/or their parts recycled.
Some car manufacturers moved their production over to China, General Motors and Cadillac are examples of this. They are then shipped over in containers and unloaded at ports. However they are now being told to put a big halt in their import into the U.S.A. as they just can't sell them in the quantities they would desire. Consequently Chinese car parks are now filling up with brand new American cars. Well nobody in China can afford them on their meagre pittance wages, so there they will stay until our economy improves...which it might do in a few generations.
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I bet Marx predicted this..... he's been very right about capitalism and very wrong about communism
well said Magooo
Perfect analogy of that fucker....
Private Bailey
10 million empty homes in US.
The car manufacturers are competing with airplane manufacturers who also have vast parking lots all over the world overflowing with unused airplanes. Mohave desert anyone?
The real question is not why so many cars are standing around. The real question is who financed them and how are they linked to the books of the automakers.
Is it the same scheme as described here?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71mgOZA-WBI
Onr thing is known and that in cheap money and low interest rates allow the auto companies to hold this unsold inventory longer.
"Well nobody in China can afford them on their meagre pittance wages"... that's patently false. The big thing is that US cars are basically a minor step up from random domestic brands, and below the better domestic brands. Most like to buy BMW/Benz/Audi at the higher end (prices are approximately double the US price), and for mid-range, it's mostly a mix of Japanese and VW.
You do know the "China" models are stripped of a lot of the safety and environmental features of the Western ones right?
Maybe 5~10 years ago that was the case. Not so much anymore. At least, not for any models that have a chance in hell of selling.
I think these cars can be used for group funerals. Two in the front, two in the back, one in the boot. Extra spaces available in the ashtray for those who have been cremated.
Then again, they can probably be used as homes with some slight modifications.
By the way is there much difference between these unsold cars sitting on someone's balance sheet and the crap that the FED has accumulated on its balance sheet over the last few years?
Good analogy! We can imagine each of those cars equal to, say, $100,000 on the Fed balance sheet.
Well if they'd just give me some free money I'd liberate a couple of new trucks for them.
GHOST CARS.
GHOST HOUSES.
All we need now is GHOST PEOPLE.
.
Been there, voted with that. Dead democrats.
This is just one of endless insanities that happen when predators can create unlimited fiat, fake, fraud, fiction, fantasy, fractional-reserve toilet-paper debt notes out of nothing by merely tapping a few keys.
Oh, not to mention the corruption of lending to huge corporations at zero interest rate.
Oh, not to mention the corruption of paying bonuses to corporation executives based upon short-term measures.
Oh, not to mention the corruption of letting companies consider unsold goods as sold goods, so the executives can get those unearned bonuses.
This is what happens when human predators have easy ways to jigger the system to benefit themselves and their fellow predators.
How much pollution is created by these rotting cars (and all the materials and production activity that went into creating cars that just rot and end up in a land-fill somewhere)? But now most eco-freaks have been converted into apologists for the carbon-tax scam (AGW), so they're not available to freak about real waste and pollution like this.
Humans are so far gone.
Sustainability means planning our future in a way that we do not set ourselves up to crash and burn at some future date. Long-term planning has not been something politicians excel at or are even good at. Our system is geared at getting politicians reelected and fulfilling the most pressing needs of today.
Things like profit, greed, and quenching our unrelinquishing desire for growth are moved in front of the longer term issues and needs. Mapping out a logical and sustainable long-term plan requires delving into some rather hefty philosophical questions like what brings real happiness. We would have to think about what kind of society and world future generations might want to live in. We would have to recognize the role of the human animal in the overall scheme of things.
http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2014/04/planning-sustainable-future-for-m...
Happiness was very poor choice of words our founders used, but I feel your pain.
Sustainability means letting REAL, laissez faire, truly free markets function to allocate resources properly. Is there any honest person now who can't see that that laissez faire markets are also the most environmentally sound means of allocating resources because they are an honest exchange of value. These are the fruits of socialism. Crony capitalism IS socialism because governments are intervening in markets for sundry reason that are in their agenda. The banksters, corporatist fat cats, crony trade unionists and gummint political/bureaucrat turnstile elites are stuck in an endless loop and the "invisible hand" is getting ready to suckerpunch these sleazy fascists. Can't REAL environmentalists see that sound economics is in the interest of the environment? This shit is such an incredible waste of resources that it is criminal, violates all constructive precepts of sound economics, is poor stewardship of resources and a sin against nature and the natural order. They fail to trade good value for good value.
"REAL, laissez faire, truly free markets" are an impossibility.
You are partly correct, but to have any chance whatsoever of solving any problems, you must reformulate all statements by replacing "we" and "us" with "I" and "me".
The very notion that WE need to think about what delivers real happiness to individuals is a direct and blatant self-contradition. Different situations and different tradeoffs make different individuals happy, and [virtually] ZERO individuals want to be slaves.
Once you understand this ONE fundamental fact, you can move forward on two fronts:
#1: Support the end of EVERY possible "system" that involves ANY involuntary interactions between humans.
#2: Go figure out what will make you happy (all things considered), and spend the rest of your life taking the actions to achieve your happiness.
Of course, you must understand what these two items mean, including what might not be obvious to some less thoughtful (and more intellectually corrupt) individuals.
When all involuntary systems are gone, you are not forced to do anything, and not punished for doing anything you wish that does not harm others or their property. This means you can't force others to do what you want either, or punish others for doing what they want. You are free to pursue your happiness, but so is everyone else. They don't harm or force you or your property, and you don't harm or force them or their property. Simple.
You are free to do anything that doesn't harm or destroy others or their property, and everyone else is too. So you get to [discover and] choose what will make you happy, but taking the actions necessary to make yourself happy is entirely up to you.
But this doesn't mean you are stuck doing everything yourself. Not at all. You and everyone else are entirely free to do anything at all, which means all voluntary interactions are fine (including endless activities that are not illegal).
Yes indeed, everyone should think about how to create a sustainable future for themselves. And that is a completely natural to think in a world where your future is entirely up to you. Which is my point. No global solutions. No national solutions. No state solutions. No county solutions. No city or town solutions. The only solutions that exist are... individual solutions, including voluntary interactions with others.
-----
PS: The only way to solve problems with laws, officials, politicians, authorities and governments is... to eliminate them all. Just understand that any "system" imposed on everyone (or anyone) is inherently an evil system, and cannot be fixed.
seeing all those unused cars is sickening.
aggregate demand should outstrip aggregate supply. besides, that's how you get "growth".
and, the world doesn't need more autos.
it needs more christiania bikes.
Pretty soon we'll be fighting with our own machines for lebensraum...
The solution is simple. Part them out so guys like me can keep driving the old jalopy. If I can find a new leather tanseats for my 96 Mustang, I could go a few hundred on that stuff just to get that new car smell. If these sit longer in these humid docks, they won't even have the aroma of solvents outgassing to give buyers that new car high. They will be even more difficult to sell when that's gone. Perhaps they have a manual tranny too, I'll buy if they have a five-speed world class for $300.
These guys did this to themselves by delivering cars with defects though a dealer network that won't diagnose and fix the new car they just sold you. I haven't bought a car new since 1982 after that vehicle was delivered a quart low on oil, leaking main seal, pinging engine that failed emissions every year. It passed their 82 point safety check which included checking all fluid levels. The horn cover broke off on the trip home from buying. Window crank knob broke the next week. The horn repeatedly came unplugged under the hood, so the dealer charged Chrysler for replacing the horn and turn signal assembly. The starter was broken the next trip after they "repaired" the horn. That experience was so horrific that I saw no reason to buy cars that need repairing new when there are plenty that need repairing to be had cheaply as used. Instead of buying new cars, I learned how to repair the old ones. I stay with 90's models with OBD2, no satellite tracking when they offered more colors that silver metallic, gold metallic or black.
It may be strategic planning to park them at the docks. Last year when the storms blew through the East Coast of the US and flooded these parked new cars, sales of this inventory skyrocketed - to the insurers.
We must remember the influx of monetary stimulus from QE and massive government deficit spending has created the illusion of more pent up demand then exist or can be substantiated. This results in an elevated baseline for comparing year on year growth, in short we have to move forward faster next year just to keep growing. For example, if we manufacture and sell twelve million automobiles this year up from ten million because of low interest rates and easy money, we now must sell the same number for the economy not to contract. More on how we are pushing on a string in the article below.
http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2013/01/what-happens-after-momentum-ends_...
All puppets get cut loose in the end.
Yes PT I get the rant :)
Shorter version
- money is work traded for work
- there will be a re-ordering of relative value
- a rose is a rosé by any other name (central planning = slavery)
Hang in there. The vast majority are decent people who help when they can.
Truth => Individual => Responsibility => Freedom
(Re-posted)
06 accord has 151k miles on it. runs great :)
your research is commendable. But what it doesn't say is that automobile manufacturing in the United States at the beginning of the 21st century is not about profit. It's about militry preparedness and government. Government bailed out the auto industry in 2008-2009. Does anyone really think that government is not still bailing out the auto industry? Does anyone really think that governments are going to allow companies like Chrysler, GM and Ford to EVER go under?
No.
They are too big to fail for two reasons. 1. Militarily. 2. The jobs they provide. We have a government problem here, not a car manufacturer problem after all.
Those lots of vehicles are simply storage silos for weapons grade metal, should the need arise.
Ford never took the bailout money.
Exart
The only reason they are 'too big to fail' is because they generate large sums of money and votes for the leftists.
Off topic
A few days ago the Ukrainian military was given one hour to leave, now there is no news almost anywhere of the Ukraine situation. It is either all bullshit or the .govs around the world clamped down on the media.
Ukraine, Mekraine, Migraine, the attention drawn to this unfolding drama is feeding the beast.
I don't care to see one more article about it.
If we ignore it, it might just go away.
The more broadband it takes up the less there is for really important stuff. Like how Eric Holder is leaving office without 'auditioning' even one major playuh in the Jewish Wall Street Mafia.
I am going to need a new car in a few years, but, I'm waiting for my local Exxon station to start handing out free Chevys with a fillup.
These pictures are old and this article is beneath ZH.
BS look it up.
Au contraire, bon ami.
I just learned about it here. The lag in knowledge between curious human beans can be attributed to the inability of the brain to absorb too much stimulus at one time. Some times, we just have to shut off the inflow and thereby miss stuff.
Don't belittle those of us who are seeing this for the first time. There are likely lags in your own information.
Fer instance, do you know where in the world Joe Cassano is? Why we should know? No googling!!
BI article circa Feb 2009. almost certainly gotten worse since then...
http://www.businessinsider.com/unsold-cars-around-the-world-2009-2
Let me guess.......most of these parks are not in FantasyLand(USA)??
I have a solution that will not only keep everyone employed but also stop wasting resources.......at the end of the assembly line they build a car disintegrator where it is chewed up into bits, shipped back to China and processed. Only people with gov't clearance will be allowed to work in this part of the car plant and anyone that questions why there are no cars coming out the other end will be thrown in jail. To make things look good they will have a rotating stock of cars that are brought into the factory in an underground tunnel.
LOL. This whole economy is a fucking sham built to unattainable heights based on digital zeros what could possibly go wrong?
I really don't see a huge war not happening there is no way any of this can end well. The elites aren't going to let go of their stranglehold just so the world can survive.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB120942873506551291
PORTLAND, Ore. -- "Fire in the hole!" shouts Ron Hoodenpyle, covering his ears and stepping away from a brand-new Mazda 3 he just wired with special detonators. Suddenly, all six of the car's airbags explode at once.
Within hours the metallic blue sedan will be drained, gutted, squished and shredded -- one of thousands to meet the same fate here. The cars are so new, most don't even have 10 miles on the odometer.
Auto makers usually try to find the best way to build new vehicles. These days, Mazda Motor Corp. 7261.TO -2.28% is busy figuring out how to most efficiently destroy them.
That article is disturbing.
When lawyers rule a society this is the stupidity that you get.
What a waste; how many lawyers work in government?
98 Subaru, 283,000. 05 highlander, 165,000. Both bought used years ago.
Be subversive, buy used.
Have you noticed that your used car values have gone up in price?
I would like to hear more on this subject. There seams to be more incentive than just having inventory on books to justify all of this and the manipulation of the used car market. What am I missing?
What you're missing is the no money down bad credit used (I imagine that new will come into play) car sales. I saw a guy purchase a used a basic Ford F-150, and will pay about 70K when done. The fucking vehicle was worth abot 18K, if that.
That said, a lot of auto plants wrere closed here in the US over the last 10 years.
http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/stories/2006/01/23/daily3.html?pag...
http://innovationtrail.org/post/massena-starts-new-chapter-old-gm-plant-...
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/02/business/02union.html?_r=0
I could go on, but I was working for an outfit that went around the country that would test electrical power systems. Included was testing power sub stations for PBC containing electrical equipment. That was due to top management needing to know what hazaeds were there before they closed the plants. (I did the same for other industrial sites as well). When I showed up, it was like Dr. Kevorkian knocking on your door, though they never knew it. I hated that job.
We are not in a Depression, We are not in a Depression, We are not in a Depression......
Take one Chinese "ghost city" add the US homeless people, give each one a surplus car. Viola! Three problems solved!
Seriously, there are a hell of a lot of dollars, euros, yen etc. tied up in products no one wants (or can't afford) This is insanity.
This is a 2009 story.
Nothing to see here move along.
Nope, pics are from 2012, 2013.
Here's the same post on Jalopnik.com more than 5 years ago:
http://jalopnik.com/5135675/where-are-automakers-stashing-unsold-cars
Enjoy your stale reposts, shitheads
For some of us it is a new story
so what you are saying, if I read that article right, is that ZH/Tyler are posting photos taken during 2009 crisis as if they are today's reality?
If its true then ZH owes us an explanation.
That aint correct reporting.
Some of those pictures are new, some are older. But did you take the time to google those images as stated in the article? Or do you just complain? No, I thought not. If you don't provide the information for me without my having to verify it, well then, Tyler must be to blame. Sounds very American to me.
I did google them.
About half the pics are from 2012, 2013, looked it up on google. The article claiming BS is just looking to piggy back off this article's popularity.
"The past isn't dead. It's not even past".
http://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2008/03/-the-past-isnt-dea...
I wonder how much more YOU don't know?
Andrew Sullivan? Really?
I did the research, half the pics are as new as 2013, and some are as old as 2009. The ones from 2013, 2012 are proof positive the article isn't using 2009 pics. And who's to say the 2009 pics haven't changed much, maybe with newer cars?
doublepost
Impressive photos; the crisis of overproduction in world autos is nearly as bad as the crisis in production of derivative bets by the TBTF HFT Casino !
This is the dumbest thing I have ever seen - people would gladly buy these cars and the manufacturers should be happy to get some money back - even if it is just cost and few hundred over - how could any company be viable after this?
you're wrong as rain, if the the automakers take a loss their stock price goes down and they can no longer use their reflated capex to manufacture their primary source of value, financially engineered profits. as someone said of GE a few years ago, its no conglomerate, its a hedge fund, most companies are. since the wall street corporates profit directly from inflated assets their hedge fund model is doing better than conventional hdege funds, which is why hedge funds buy oil for storage and real estate with cash. i would say sell these cars to the hedge funds on spec, but you have to store them and maintain them and they are perishable as summer peaches, nobody wants a 2013 car in 2014. (see bob prechter, two jaguars)
Yep, wrong as rain, guy's probably hoarding stacks of barbarous relics too. There is no misallocation of resources, mismanagement or fraud here, it's just how modern finance "works."
The problem is even if sold at cost the embedded union cost to manufacture a new car makes it too expensive for the average person. When GM, Chrysler went bankrupt it was because of the unions and associated costs. The zero administration thought they would fix the problem by eliminating a lot of the Dealers and the remaining Dealers would be able to sell vehicles because the competition was reduced - yes that is how stupid they are.
When people who have never run a company or held a real job are in charge you just get bigger piles of stupid.
"When GM, Chrysler went bankrupt it was because of the unions and associated costs."
And "associated costs," like they're secondary to "union costs?" Seems like you're doing a good job of loading up on the anti-labor rhetoric. And the non-union part -management- had no part in the failure? (or, as I note below, the fact that everyone is broke also has no part?) But anyway...
GROWTH IS DEAD. Growth is what presents the actual positive margins. It's what holds off deflation. It enables economies of scale (in the positive direction).
Everyone is broke. Raw materials, the processing of them, and labor were always greared toward increased growth. When that growth isn't there it all unravels. Further, you can go back a LONG time and see how industry and politics pushed "new markets" for dumping. No new markets (no growth), so the dumping no longer is working: rather than what the term originally meant -to sell off over-production- "dumping" is now tending to reflect the literal.
As someone with a bunch of different types of "vehicles" (I refer to them as tools) I can attest to the realities of managing/maintaining/operating them. Even if people could get "free" cars they're going to struggle to maintain/operate them: and most likely they'll not (just like with most folks' that are underwater with their homes).
All of this is WAY beyond being about labor issues/costs (not that I do not acknowledge that part of the equation- it's just that the equation itself is really no longer that which it had been [one that never dwelt on the notion of permanent loss of growth due to declining resources]).
That's sadly the totally wrong conclusion.
It only shows that too much cars are produced and that the force of exponential growth will destroy this planet.
That's the result of debt based compound interest money.
And secondly it is interesting what all the brabbling about green and sustainability is: hypocrisy from a regime built on nothing but lies.
society is make believe.
those fields of cars are a wake up call to the world we exist in. Remember the fields from the matrix?
Under the same umbrella. We're batteries.
This is informative but I don't see a whole lot of Maserati Ghilbi's, Ferraris, Teslas, F-types, Corvettes, 65 Mustang cherries, Lambhorghinis, Lotuses, Escalaldes, Suburbans, Porsches, Mercedes, Audis, Beemers, Humvees,....
What I see are only Middle Classes rides.
Yep. And a rapidly shrinking middle class buys a rapidly shrinking number of new cars, eh?
Who is this "Middle Class" you speak of?
Are they from the "Middle East" or "Middle Earth"?
Watch, the government will start giving people new cars instead of dollar denominated tax refunds, problem solved. People will have more $ to spend into the economy because they will not have a car payment every month ;-)
they'll default on their bonds and give payment in kind. this is what we bought with those worthless bonds, so this is what you get
Where are the auditors making the car companies take the fucking write downs!
errrr...how would I find the west coast?
These photos are the employee lots at NSA facilities around the world.
ha ha, thanks, I was mistaken in thinking that they were shots of Russian tanks massed at the Ukrainian border...
I've thought this before, but it can't be long now. Can it?
i think we could film the remake of the Blues Brothers, we have a lot of empty malls too
At the same time, Audi dealer in sf bay are are stormed by twitter and facebook workers.
http://worldsupdates.blogspot.com/2009/07/jaguar-inflation-robert-r-prec...
We are supposed to get a 12-30 foot sea level rise. If we deploy the airbags on all this inventory, will the cars float? That could be useful.
The unsold car lot has been around for more than half a century in the auto industry. As a former manager in the auto industry I saw it as just another gimmick used by the bean counters. The object of the automotive bean counters is not to scare investors in their stocks and bonds.
The auto bean counters made it appear they were producing to a “continuous demand” rather than the actual “boom bust” cycle that are the norm for automotive companies. Automotive bean counters did this so they could borrow billions during the bust cycle to have enough money to produce the next big car or truck winner for the boom cycle.
A good example of unsold cars was first reported in Detroit’s news papers during the 1979 recession when they guessed that Chrysler had more unsold cars in Detroit lots than it had sold in the last 14 months. Embarrassed by this report Chrysler panicked, then Chrysler did what it had done in the past and looked for another Wall Street white night to bail them out. None was found because of the 1979 oil shock. So Uncle Sam bailed them out and Lee Iacocca revamped them.
Auto bean counters have gotten very creative in handling this big unsold inventory. I saw more than 20 categories for unsold cars. For example the Unsold cars are listed as leased out and later disposed of as coming off lease sales (a little old lady leased it and never drove it), next are the ones in the rental car fleet (people wanted to lease bigger cars so no one drove it), then the company car fleet (company was having rough time and never drove it), returned as part of a lemon law (the car is now fixed but has low miles), returned from a dealer (was on the dealers lot but they were not aware it was there), and twenty other codes I cannot remember from their unsold list.
Sounds like those bean counters have a future in government
You know the other thing to consider about dumping them for much lower prices is that it sets a precedent about real costs. What if they did sell them for chump change? Say a $24,000 vehicle for a mere $4,000. There would have to be a financial backlash of tremendous proportions. Forget the stock holders, that would be like a bankruptcy sale. If the big 3 and others can't hold onto pricing then that would cascade down the chain of goods and services like a wildfire in California. Deflationary pressure would be enormous.
enormous and revealing.
It's called supply & demand.
And Debased Accounting helps make this possible. It is going to take generations to clean up this mess and let market forces drive things.
Infinite fiat meets finite demand, bitchez. By all free market rights, even new POS should sell for a dollar.
Alll these autos can be stored in the increasing number of ghost Malls in the US.
In the mean time the Federal Reserve and it's banksters are loading up the youth with generational debt.
Although subprime housing is back baby! Load up on that 125% LTV, buy PMs and then default. Squat for 2 years and live well.
Housing bust #2 on it's way.
Do not be surprised if government starts confiscating savings accounts and issuing you a vehicle in exchange.
excellent article.. sell car stocks? are we sure this isn't inventory that isnt en route to dealer lots after a few weeks?
assuming it isn't...
we have had private profits and public losses for banks.. here we have private book profits masking billions upon billions of losses for car makers.. who also got a bail out in the GFC.
this is what happens when accountants don't value inventory correctly, companies dont make losses for lack of sales..
how on earth is a new car buyer supposed to know they aren't getting one of these cars that has been sitting exposed for months and won't be a dud? maybe these cars are non bio-degradable and are indestructible, so it doesn't matter if they are left unused? hmmm
does someone have anumber for inventory turn per car manufacturer in months over the last ten years?
China builds cities where no one lives and the U.S. builds cars no one drives.
This is not a big deal. The intergalactic aliens think new cars taste like honey.
Perhaps a better use of resources would be to have people dig holes and have more fill them in...
Think of the energy expended to fabricate all these vehicles. No wonder we are seeing global warming.
50 barrels of oil per car I heard quoted once. That's why cash for clunkdogglers made so much sense. Get them coming and going with the debt load of a new car and then make them pay the carbon tax. The energy is super cheap at the point of a gun.
define: peak oil - the maximum amount of petroleum an empire is able to wrest from tributes and expansion.
I think that the article above exaggerates the problem although I agree there is a problem, see:
http://autobeatinsider.com/news/u-s-stockpile-unsold-cars-grows
But perhaps too many unsold cars has contributed to the fact that Berkshire Hathaway (Warren Buffett) has cut its stake in General Motors:
http://www.autonews.com/article/20140516/OEM/305169969/buffett-hedge-funds-trim-gm-holdings-amid-record-recalls
"As it is, there are more cars than there are people on the planet with an estimated 10 billion roadworthy cars in the world today."
that can't be true... i think it's more like around 1 billion after a cursory research.
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2011/08/23/car-population_n_934291.html
http://www.statisticbrain.com/cars-produced-in-the-world/
http://www.bing.com/maps/#Y3A9NTQuODk2ODIzfi0xLjUwNDI1NCZsdmw9MTImc3R5PWI=
https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en
Links to Google and Bing maps of the Nissan Test track in Sunderland UK. No cars here to see! How old are these images? Don't know but there were no cars stored here when these images were made.
http://www.bing.com/maps/#Y3A9MzUuNjAwODk5fi04Mi41NTQwMDEmbHZsPTQmc3R5PX...
https://www.google.com/maps/@51.4270431,0.742604,571m/data=!3m1!1e3
Links to Google and Bing maps of the docks at Sheerness UK. Can't say which image is the oldest/newest but whatever the case some inventory moved from one pic to the next
http://www.businessinsider.com/unsold-cars-around-the-world-2009-2
2009 year, i will agree with the guy that yes there is a lot of unsold cars in storage, but his breaking news images from this year aren't :P
2009 was a bad year for inventory build ... wonder what's it's like today ... we do not know from these pictures
Iffen the musselmans don't make their wiveses drive we're gonna bomb them back to the stone age.
Just In Time (JIT) inventory control is the rule now ... not the exception, especially when supply can easily meet demand and demand is predictable. You don't need much safety stock. You don't need much inventory at all. This is not "in transit" inventory waiting for the next truck, or train, or ship. Proper planning does not use old airstrips for that because that is expensive ... severely sub optimal. The lots are at the shipping point and are not large in terms of days of inventory. This is clearly political inventory control.
There is one of these in Brooklyn. Thousands of new cars at an unused port once filled with shipping containers, now a parking lot for unsold new cars. Prime real estate looking north to the Manhattan skyline that the city is sitting on with the idiotic dream of a train ferry to New Jersey.
Well, car and motorcycle manufacturers register a sale when the product ships out of the factory. This is what did in Allis-Chalmers: they rented fields with rail access to "ship" tractors there to store and register sales. Eventually they had to bring those assets back on the books and that was the end.
Had to chime in here because I'm seeing this where I live (Silicon Valley). I'm seeing undeveloped lots being fenced off and stuffed with brand new cars from surrounding dealerships. They pretty much have to because their onsite overflow lots are already full.
The local eatery I go to regularly is located in an outdoor mall built in the 70s, one of those places that has a huge parking lot that is maybe 1/2 full at it's busiest of times because the mall itself only has a 1/2 occupancy rate. Most of the places have been shuttered for years almost 20 years now.
Anyway, that parking lot has now been slowly getting filled up with new cars from the Audi dealership down the street. Brand new cars just sitting there out in the open, and this is in a neighborhood that is not very safe. It's not ghetto, but there is a lot of seedy homeless and other undesirable types roaming around.
It's pretty amazing when you think about it. I would personally love to buy a new car but they are so damned expensive it just doesn't make sense.
Then you see these pictures of unsold cars sitting around and wonder what the hell is going to happen to these things. Are they really going to just sit there and rot or will they simply be "recycled".
Finally an explanation for crop circles.
Why aren't these being stolen by the thousands? They wouldn't even be missed.
They no shit will have to mandate all cars older than x must be scrapped on trade in. With a big fat fiat trade in scam. You will be driving a new car weather you want to or not. Even the classics will have to be turned in. All other options lead to an economic crash that will make 08 look microscopic.
Think about it. TBTF as a buisiness model.
That entier industry running way in the red on fiat. No more independant nothing. Because you cant compete with a counterfitter.
Think of it as vacume up economics. jmo
THE CARS ? Just What I Needed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5-rdr0qhWk (3:42)
The Cars - Magic (OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0Kv6vxZwL8 (4:12)
The Cars- Good Times Roll
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCmkZFMSuFQ (3:47)
How about some data to augment the pretty pictures. I have no way of knowing if this is normal or not.
Calm down, production without demand is a completely normal symptom in central planning.
maybe the fed needs some .....
extra cars?
.
David Lindley - Mercury Blues - The Roxy, Washington DC 1988
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAbbgSKUZB4
Dumb ass Central Planners should have let GM go bankrupt and the problem might not be so bad.
I know the answer to the problem...wait my pop tarts are ready and the game is back on
That is amazing.
I didn't see a lot of pick-up trucks in there but did see a lot of SUV types. I guess that depends on geogrphical location. I guess that explains why every time I get out my pick-up,(that I have taken extremely good care of) someone walks up and makes an offer. Not For Sale. I bought that truck in 2001 and it still looks like it is pretty much brand new and there is a reason why. Take care of your stuff and it lasts a lot longer. You don't need to buy something new every couple of years.
The old mantra pre-2008 was that you should dump your vehicle every few years because something will "go wrong" with it and it will cost you more than a down payment on a brand new car to fix. Perhaps that does happen and there will be expenses but there is another way to deal with that. Fix the thing yourself if you can. Most of of the time you can fix it yourself. Just because your service engine light soon light comes on does not mean you need a new car. It's likley an O2 sensor and nine times out of ten it is a failed sensor that monitors engine aspiration and exhaust. Buy a code reader for a $100 or even go have it read for free at an auto parts store. They will print you a slip that tells you what the code means and even reset the computer for you.
Anytime you see a service engine light on, it's a bad sensor somewhere. If you keep driving the car without addressing it then you will fuck things up. Eventually there will be some problems that require more advanced knowledge and sometimes really bad things just end up happening because parts wear out. When those part wear out, it is not a service engine light that comes on, you feel it in the vehicle's performance.
I love the old classic 60's muscle cars. I am not of that classic age where the old school guys rodded out the engines but I did have a 69 Pontiac Tempest that a motorhead friend and I had just had to tear apart when I was younger back in the 90's. There was no computer but by the time we were done we had a 3/4 race cam, Edelbrock intake manifold, a Holley 750 and a Mallory electronic ignition along with custom welded stainless steel daul exhaust with Thursh glasspacks. I added some Krager Keystone classic rims and BF Goodrich tires. Added some trim too.
I will never forget the first time we fired her up after running through the engine which took us two months to do. It was a symphony of cackle and and if you do not what "cackle" means, it means this. That is a great burn and you can also hear the hyrdraulic lifters float. I wonder how many of the young ones know what happens if you use solid lifters and things are not balanced? I am probably one of the last of my generation to know about some of these things. We don't need their bluetoothed cars. A 65 GTO is not going to report where you are to the government.
There was nothing in the world that felt like acceleration the first time I opened the Holley's four barrel. You just got pushed back in the seat and felt the Turbo 400 transmission shift smoothly. The sound of an American engine from the 60's is not like any other in the world. It is a thing of beauty to listen to if you have never had a chance to ride in one like I built. Later on, the top speed I hit was around 135-140 mph when the front end started coming off the ground and I had to let off. I was angry about a girl and had several miles of deserted straight road ahead. You should have seen my gas gauge going down in real time! I got it out of my system and never did that again.
I had to sell my 69 to help my Mom on finances before she passed but I want one of the orignals back. Car's are a part of American culture. I do not want to drive a computer. How about a real car.
That old car will soon be illegal. No black box, no current pollution controls, no computers, plus it's fun? Gotta get that off the road buddy.
Can you still land at those airports if your 777 runs out of fuel?
You can land your 777 just about anywhere if you please. You might not be able to take off again though.
ok..i did a search...saw a grudniag stroy from 2009 and this excerpt
Eric Lyman, a senior analyst at Truecar, calculates the inventory overhang slightly differently, but reaches the same conclusion.
Rather than tally supply days (assembly line to sale) he prefers “days to turn,” which is the time it takes to sell a car from the day it is delivered to the dealer. This excludes transportation time, which for cars made overseas, can be well over a week. The shorter days to turn metric stood at 64.9 days, up 23% from 52.6 days a year ago.
“These are the highest inventory levels we’ve seen since 2009,” Lyman said, and it leaves manufacturers two choices: either make fewer cars for a while or step up incentives to move them faster. So far, they’ve preferred incentives.
So how long does it take to unwind the surplus? Lyman said he expects it will take a couple of months.
from here http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/2014/03/03/why-this-winters-blizzar...
somebody is mixing shit up.. if the inventory isn't turned into sales that just has to mean invenotry will show up in company reporting this quarter (well except for chrysler owner fiat who uses european accounting rules, whatever they are)
World calling Belgium.... We need your help.
Is it okay that ZeroHedge just copies verbatim an entire fucking webpage and shows it to us? Maybe it's better than just a fucking link, but maybe write some original content and then explain to people that if they want to see something more... go to this fucking guy's webpage. I suppose we're just mindless idiot fucks who won't click a link and do that, but you know what? I clicked on the this fucking guy's link and saw the very exact same fucking thing that was posted. So who's being the lazy fuck? Not me...
Yes, it IS OK for a Tyler to do that because I would not have known otherwise. I liked the post.
Also ok by me. This is an open forum and I thank him for his work.
Copying his page?? It first appeared in the Guardian - credit where credit is due.
http://www.theguardian.com/business/gallery/2009/jan/16/unsold-cars?pict...
Since GM is a company that has no profits, maybe the other car makers could donate their cars to GM and get the charity tax deduction.
Buy my brand of cornflakes and YOU will get a new car. Think how enviously your neighbors will be when you drive home in your spanking brand new hot diggerdy dog car with your cornflakes.
If the channel-stuffing is wide spread, even other than GM, then I think these crooks are waiting for bail out. They will stuff to a point and then ask for government help. Some tax rebate or relief for people to buy cars.
This is what happens when market signalling is removed. Inflation in meat prices making meat a luxury for many whilst thousands of complex manufactures , using high energy input, expensive and rare earth metals and highly complicated supply chains , are slowly yielding to entropy on the docks.
I recall a 1930's depression era novelist, John Steinbeck maybe, describing how he became disillusioned with capitalism at the time of the Great Depression when he saw mountains of Californian oranges left to rot in a pile in the fields - in the hope of increasing prices. Is it any different now ?
Many of the new cars hitting the road are really leases which show up as a sale, and many of them may be motivated because an automobile owner faced with a costly repair doesn't have money to put into their current vehicle. This allows someone in a weak financial position, such as those living on disability or student loans, to put themselves into an ego boosting vehicle that they cannot in reality afford, or need.
I contend that super low artificial interest rates are making much of this possible. If I'm correct, much of the idea of "so called pent up demand" is secondary. It should be noted even with surging sales US auto companies are "hyper boosting" the economy by producing more cars than are being sold causing inventories to build. More below on the subject of a shift in consumer spending that hints of problems ahead.
http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2014/05/consumption-of-autos-healthcare-a...
I got a question!
Just read an article about Germany and that a town are hiring alcholics to sweep the streets. They pay them in beer. If they do not want to enjoy beer, they will earn 1 euro an hour.
Now I wonder, how is it possible for the financial market to go ATH, and at the same time push wages down to developing country-levels?
WTF is going on?
If we have to many cars and can't buy them all they need to make them into something we "really need" like personal robots! An article that I stumbled across got me thinking about the implications of robots going main stream. Yes, I'm looking down the road at a time in the near future when a person may decide to walk down the street with his metal companion or worker beside him or in tow.
Why would someone take or have a robot with them? To carry things, do work, personal protection, as in a bodyguard, or because you just want to attract attention and turn heads. Questions immediately begin to surface and problems arise when you are told at the mall that you can't bring that "thing" in here. Below is an article that looks into the crazy problems robots might create if they ever go main stream.
http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2013/09/thats-my-robot.html
If people can't affor to buy cars, what makes you think they'll be able to afford personal robots.....for any reason?
Then.....what the hell would we do with millions and millions of onowned/unemployed robots?
Oh....wait....Is it possible that the Tribal bankster's bloodlust could be sated with robot armies for their parmawars? Could spilled oil and mechanical fluids be as satisfying as watching real human blood and guts being blown all over the battlefields of the earth? Would Allah approve of these infidel robots as sacrifices sufficient to gain 70 virgins for the mullahs issuing fatwas to annihilate the infidel robots?.....Or would Allah be disappointed in the fact that there would be less and less 10 year old children being blown to smithereens for his sake.
Zerohedgers, still gullible and dumb. Those photos are 4 and 5 years old. One is from a Nissan factory that turns out 500,000 cars a year. They have to be stored while waiting for transport.
If manufacturers have a glut, they slow production and lay people off. They can't keep producing cars if no one is buying, there is no capital to do so without sales.
Business, how does it work?
Idiots.
This article shows no evidence that these conditions are occurring today. But they did occur in 2009 and appears to be first reported in the Guardian.
"Growing stocks of unsold cars around the world - Carmakers around the world are cutting production as inventories build up to unprecedented levels. Storage areas and docksides are now packed with vast expanses of unsold cars as demand slumps"http://www.theguardian.com/business/gallery/2009/jan/16/unsold-cars?pict...
Thank you. I was hoping NOT to be the one to break up the usual garbage fest on this site and state a few facts. The photos are old. Yes, there were major stockpiles back in 2008 and 2009. I saw that photo of the Nissan test track back in 2009, so the "update" from May 16, 2014, shows the cars all gone? Imagine that.
Notice that the very few close-ups shown are not of new cars. Notice that most of the sites are in Europe. As someone else said, where are all the pick-up trucks?
ZH should be ashamed to just copy and paste without requiring real facts -- simply reinforcing poor journalism and propaganda.
an estimated 10 billion roadworthy cars in the world today.
10 billion ? no way.
Ever notice how many RV dealers along the interstates are busting with inventory. Also notice how few rvs you see going down the highway compared to 7 years ago. Big channel stuffing going on in that industry.
This entire article appears to be have totally debunked
That Zero Hedge Article On Unsold Cars Is Bullshithttp://www.snopes.com/photos/automobiles/unsoldcars.asp
I know it is very much the fashion of the day, and extra much so here @ zerohedge, to be all pro capitalism and pro industry and pro guns and pro fosil fuels and anti anything remotely liberal... so please tell, me, all you pro unregualted capitalism folks, how is this all going to end up well if we keep using the current construct for our society? It is my hippy/liberal conviction that we simply will not survive as a species if we continue with our curent social construct. The only way we will survive as a species is for us to collectivly realize and admit that the Earth is finite and we will destroy it in the near futire if we continue to operate with the profit motive as our only moral. We need to actually become -more than- socialist, wee need to recognize that to keep building is insane, we need to share our resources equitably and intelligently and we need to actually -OH NO WHAT ABOUT FREEDOM!!!!!!!- to actually distribute food and shelter and medicine and knowledge and education to all people so that we can all contribute to solving how to live a modern life with modern thigns in a sustainable way.
I am more than aware that this notion is enough to get the zerohedge death squads after me, but to those offended by this notion, it is up to you to solve ALL issues now, as you have politically bullied all other ideas off the global stage of thought. So get to it, you have some real work to do and I am not impressed with your obsession with Benghazi, Benghazi!, BENGHAZI! over all other things.
Um...your socialism is what has allowed millions of people that never should have existed to have generation after generation of offspring that suckles from the government teet. You want to reduce our "exploitation" of the earth, then stop feeding your ghetto bunnies. Don't worry, those of us with guns will clean up the environmental mess you've created.
You pretty much summed it all up! Billions upon Billions of "useless eaters" rotting away the Planet and Habitable Living space without contributing Anything to Arts, Science or Philosophy just faking maggots. I think a Nuclear WW3 is not only inevitable it's Necessary!
Doom and gloomers since Aesop, African, Babylonian, Egyptian, Greek, Indian and Peruvian Skeptics, Cassandra, Chicken Little/Henny Penny, Hobbes, Malthus, Swift, The Boy Who Cried Wolf, Club of Rome, Paul Ehrlich, Kissinger, Soros and AlGore have been making fortunes off the gullible, billions for aeons.
It's not about Benghazi BS, failures or lack, it's about Constitutional protections of justice, life, liberty, peace and prosperity:
http://bit.ly/1oFQGPG
What is your occupation? If you don't mind me asking a personal question. I'll start. I am an engineer.
MOVE ALONG FOLKS - Nothing to see here!
Even if there are a million unsold cars sitting around the world, it's no big deal! It's only about 30-40 billion $ worth of inventory which the Fed is buying up every month anyway through its various schemes and scams. And in due time, GM etal will be bailed out with more of your money!
It's juts more of the same old, same old! Nothing new here to report!
Taxpayer funder bailouts allow politicians to buy votes of loyal unioized autoworkers so they csn vote for the same politicians so they get more bail out money etc. etc. etc.
Taxpayer funder bailouts allow politicians to buy votes of loyal unioized autoworkers so they csn vote for the same politicians so they get more bail out money etc. etc. etc.
Echoes do George Orwell. We must dump the boots in to the ocean so men may make more boots.
Major criticsm across the intertubes about this article. Surprising number of sites are fans of ZH and uniformly they think this article is BS and beneath ZH.
Here's one http://jalopnik.com/that-zero-hedge-article-on-unsold-cars-is-bullshit-1...