Posted on 09/04/2010 10:01:03 AM PDT by WaterBoard
The most entertaining part is the 'buy American' chant by UAW workers when a lot of the ownership and manufacturing is done in Canada and Mexico.
I have no idea what this diagram is telling me, other than that this data is complex and confusing.
Does that say Range Rover is owned by Tata of India? Yikes!
for later when there’s more time to try to read through this thing...
I'm not the grammar police.
Jalopnik is usually very cool.
If I could my next car would be one I built myself.
yes, Range Rover and Jaguar have been owned by Tata for 2 years now.
yeah; they bought them recently.
I don't know who Ed Tufte is but I agree. It flunks.
Case in point, I own a Mitsubishi. It is in the same box with another symbol and has lines going to other boxes none of which have arrows in either direction. Does that mean they own each other, are partners, have limited shares in each other's stock, or something else entirely?
Thus, #1 - providing a key would be helpful. #2 - the darn thing's just too large. Having to keep scrolling back-and-forth and up-and-down the screen makes one dizzy. #3 - Also of note is that in certain instances the percentage owned or controlled is listed while in most it is not. Is that because it is 100% or is it insignificant or is it just plain unknown?
Other than that, the chart is interesting to see where there are connections btx companies.
Want some more depressing fun? Try finding out what lawnmower, garden tractors etc. are made by whom or owned by whom. MTD owns about 8 or 9 brand names. And the engines are all one or the other company== Kohler or Briggs and Stratton.
Not one free standing US maker.
By your car chart it appears that Mack trucks are owned by Volvo. Nice. Cummins diesel appears to still be a US multinational. Freightliner part of Daimler. Kenworth and Peterbilt part of PACCAR.
Thomas Bus company is part of Daimler!? No way.
And for a real depressing excursion, look up what happened to the family owned Bluebird Bus body company from Fort Valley, GA. Ruined by investment banker jackasses. And, now, no more. From Albert Luce and family in 1927 to... nothing, and a company that was so customer centered to what it is now... nothing. Wanderlodge is no more, also.
VW aka VAG owns Saab?
GM and Chrysler can go to hell.
Tufte's most famous book is "Visual Display of Quantitative Information". He is the top guy for graphical displays of information. Explaining things with images is his field -- he practically invented the study of this stuff.
Cannot see the line going from Chrysler/UAW/Obama back to Fiat??
BMW is pretty amazing. They are a realtively small company and are able to pretty much go it alone. Most car companies always had to get big and buy others to survive. They are very well run.
I saw first hand how hard those German engineers work in a mountain state where a Mercedes team was testing new model mules. They were staying at my hotel. I could have probably made tens of thousands $$ if I had taken pictures of their 2011 and 2012 mules they were testing. They were really paranoid and I think I was the only person at the hotel who knew what was going on. They parked the mules very close with big MAN vans on each side to try to hide them.
These kids were going over their data on their laptops from that day in the hotel meeting room until 10 pm each night.
Mitsu was a big money loser for a long time. I think Japan got them to partner up with somebody.
I owned one of their Chrysler/Mitsu creations. Decent car but the AC compressors fail after 2.5 to 3 years like clock work.
It's the same with oil , 'cept the chart wouldn't be so pretty.
“My guess is that Edward Tufte would give this attempt a failing grade.”
Well, I wonder how he would approach it?
I’ve wondered what he thinks about the infamous “health care diagram”.
There was a beautiful book put out (I think by Readers Digest) in the 60’s called “These United States” or something similar. That book contained the best non-computer aided expressions of data that I’ve ever seen. I read it for days and it really left an impression on me.
I’m an industry wonk so these things fascinate me and this chart is not news.
And, too, it is utter BS to hear the “Buy American” chant from people driving their Mexican made Dodge with a Canadian sourced engine and tires from S. America looking down their noses at someone driving a Hyundai built in Alabama with higher domestic content by comparison. Utter stupidity.
People also rarely realize how much of the U.S. Semi market is foreign owned and has been for DECADES. Mack, former GM, former Ford, ‘all-American’ Freightliner, former Canadian Western Star........all Euro owned.
This is the reality of the world economy and it’s not a bad thing. It’s the market working itself out. So, people should buy the best product for them at the best price for them and stop fretting over where it was made or who owns the factory it came from. Don’t forget, so much of the “Buy American” campaign is driven directly by.........Unions.
So, go ahead, keep propping-up those thieving leaches upon our society.......
Well the UAW was the majority reason GM and Chrysler failed.
Oddly if you look at VW - you will see a German flag. The State of Lower Saxony owns 20% of VW. Germans union workers do not try to sabotage the products or company like UAW scum. They are still union but they make some very good products. BMW and Mercedes make better products.
That's because they had Chrysler in their name. Happened with all the Chryslers too. I had 2 1994 Chrysler LHS's (still own one of them) and I had to replace the AC and the transmissions on both of them more than once. We loved the cars and kept them going as long as possible just because they were so comfortable and so good on gas. I was back in college during that period. Many of my classmates had Chrysler minivans, or other, smaller Chrysler, Dodge, Plymouth products and they reported the same problems starting at 60,000 mi. I think they've fixed that problem now.
“I have no idea what this diagram is telling me, other than that this data is complex and confusing.”
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Thanks, for a minute there I thought I had lost my mind.
Im all for knowing the US sourced stuff. Just a shock to learn there is no real “American” company in all this. Wonder how this fits in with US military sourcing. The issue has come up with firearms and other systems. Realize unions are behind the buy American thing. Walmart used to do that before Sam died, and now... Chinatown. I’ve no problem with Daimler as they do know something about diesels. But some outfits, Russian, chinese are just poor, lousy metallurgy lousy engineering and even worse electronics. Bought a Volvo long while back and the wiring diagram was put together by a monkey, that said the engine block lasted a good long while.
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