This commercial caught my attention recently.
Here's why. The commercial plays up BMW's production facility in South Carolina. It proudly showcases the capabilities of the plant to produce all BMW X3s in the world. There's a bit of patriotism involved here. After all, why wouldn't a company want to promote the fact that it has a major production facility in the US market to US customers?
The punch line of the commercial is "DESIGNED IN AMERICA" & "BUILT IN AMERICA". That is true; it is also misleading.
Automobiles are complex pieces of machinery with thousands of parts and subassemblies. Most auto production plants don't build cars as much as they assemble them from parts that are shipped to them. That's why your new vehicle sticker, a.k.a. Monroney Sticker, lists the percentage of foreign parts in addition to the assembly final assembly point. The April 2011 issue of Car and Driver has an interesting article that breaks down the percentage of US/Canadian parts used in domestic auto plants.
Surprisingly the BMW X3's domestic part content is only 5%. That's the second-lowest percentage listed in the article. It makes me wonder just how comfortable BMW is with producing vehicles in the US. Instead of "DESIGNED IN AMERICA" & "BUILT IN AMERICA" on could say "ASSEMBLED IN AMERICA WITH GERMAN PARTS".
In BMW's defense, the US part content percentages vary widely across vehicles. For example, the Toyota Camry US/Canadian parts content of 80% is rather high. Conversely, Subaru's Tribecca uses only 40% US/Canadian parts. Still, 5% is nothing to write home about.
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