Japanese Automakers Most Productive in North America

From Deutsche Presse-Agentur

TROY, MI — Toyota, Nissan and Honda led a list of the most productive automakers in North America, but U.S. producers have narrowed their gap with Japanese competitors, a report released Thursday said.

Toyota required 29.93 man-hours in 2006 to produce a vehicle in its North American plants, the yearly report on the auto industry released by Harbour Consulting said. Nissan is estimated to take 29.97 man-hours per vehicle, but did not participate in the survey. Honda takes 31.63 man-hours.

U.S. automakers became more productive. General Motors uses an average of 32.36 hours per car, 2.5 percent better than the previous year. Daimler Chrysler improved 2.4 percent to 32.9 man-hours and Ford by 1.9 percent to 35.1 man-hours.

The difference between the most productive and least productive manufacturers was 5.2 hours in 2006, down from 7.3 hours in 2005 and 17.2 in 1998, Bloomberg financial news reported.

Harbour expects the three U.S. firms to make further gains in productivity with the closing of additional plants this year.

Toyota and Honda earned an average of $1,200 per automobile before taxes last year. Ford lost 5,234 dollars per car, with General Motors losing 1,436 dollars and Chrysler losing 1,072 dollars.