At Roland Berger, we now have a broad perspective on the automotive sector. We also observe development in China, Brazil, Russia, and India to predict long term tendencies and future challenges. When Mercedes-Benz announced plans to open its only U.S. assembly plant in Alabama in 1993, an industry was launched. Since then, Honda, Hyundai and Toyota, as properly as an expanding network of automotive suppliers, have joined Alabama’s car manufacturing trade. A new dimension was added to this trade when Autocar, a maker of industrial quality work vans, launched production in the state.

Around 24,000 of those jobs are in Alabama’s rising automotive supplier network, which now counts 150 main companies. In a era, accelerating growth on this important sector of Alabama’s financial system has turned the state into an important manufacturing hub for the industry. The U.S. EPA data say engine horsepower is the very best ever, while average …