What Next for the Global Car Industry

Global car industry manufacturing clusters

Regions with strong car industries tend to operate as clusters in which supplier factories are located alongside those of parts manufacturers and material producers. This is because close co-ordination between automakers and a wide network of specialised suppliers is essential to keep costs low. Such production ecosystems also facilitate the rapid exchange of complex, often tacit, knowledge, especially during vehicle development phases where design, engineering and manufacturing decisions must be tightly aligned.  

 

This interactive map shows global data on car assembly location, as well as more detailed regional automotive clusters. 

Notes: “In-house component” represents the manufacturing by original equipment manufacturers for engines, traction motors and transmission. For the “Tier 1- supplier” publicly available addresses were used to identify the factory location, however not all factories are available in this way and some might be misclassified as parts supplier. “Parts suppliers” include the following components: body parts, chassis parts, climate control, driveline parts, electric and electronic parts, electric and internal combustion engine powertrain, exterior parts, AD/ADAS/telematics and interior parts. Battery pack assembly and recycling are excluded from the analysis. “Battery component manufacturing” accounts for cathode and anode active materials only. Geotagging of battery cell and component plant locations was performed using the plant and company names, country, and – for battery cell facilities – the city, based on installations as of end-2023. See the annex in the report for a full list of automakers and suppliers used for this analysis.
Sources: IEA analysis based on data from Marklines and Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.
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