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Originally Posted by anerbe
Interesting points.
First - your statements regarding the initial models from Spartanburg with low quality. What is your viewpoint in building in Mexico or US? It seems you're pointing out the fact that a new plant will have some major growing pains. Wouldn't this suggest that Mexico's first builds will be of low quality due to a "green" plant? This is more of the reason that BMW should build in Spartanburg due to the established manufacturing expertise.
In your political statement, I really don't know BMW's consideration of government policies and regulations in it's decision. I'm thinking that BMW sees the 1-series 'small car' market to be popular and a large growth opportunity in Latin/Central America sales, with the 3 series tagging along for the ride due to common parts.
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Well Spartanburg was one of BMW's first plants outside of Germany and other than the drivetrain parts, a lot of the component parts were sourced to US suppliers if I remember correctly and there were quality problems with them. But 20 years ago, outside of the E30, BMW's were not the paragon of build quality (nor are they now).
Since many manufacturers build in Mexico, good quality cars are achievable. The Ford Fusion is built in Mexico and is a very high quality automobile based on it's initial quality surveys by JD Power.
If you don't like the political statement, well, that's why it's a Forum; not everything written is meant to be likable. But it is clear that if BMW had such great success it has claimed to have with the Spartanburg plant, why not build a new plant in the USA to serve the North American and South American markets? Something has changed in the business climate in the USA that helped BMW decide the Mexico offered a better deal. Maybe it is the NAFTA situation (which wasn’t around 20 years ago when Spartanburg was under consideration), but considering the potential business climate that the Obama administration is developing, it's a good bet it was one of BMW’s main considerations for its choice in plant location. Considering BMW had developed parts supplier relationships with USA-based suppliers, why start almost anew in Mexico? It doesn’t make sense. Governmental policies and regulations are ALWAYS taken into consideration in any business decision. The US economy has been stagnate for four years, do the math.