Word: auto
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...Porsche have defied the notion that keeping pace with tech advances will break an indie carmaker's bank. One reason: parts suppliers have become powerful arbiters of success, as more auto companies outsource R. and D. of their components. Traditionally, Mercedes would develop a new antiskid technology in conjunction with a high-end component maker like Germany's Robert Bosch. Then, after Mercedes had made a splash by being the first to sell cars with the new technology, it would allow Bosch to sell the technology elsewhere. Now the suppliers are driving the process. Says Flynn: "BMW is going...
...right over the next decade. But what's decisive now is not so much size as (surprise!) sound management. Which car company is nimble enough to hop in and out of new market niches and still provide high-quality, sexy cars that people aspire to own? Mike Flynn, an auto expert at the University of Michigan, observes that new technology is only one of the elements--including styling and reliability--that make a car attractive. "Companies like BMW and Honda," he says, "offer products that keep them successful." So does Porsche, where sales are soaring 16% so far this year...
...plant in Spartanburg, S.C., which now exports the company's popular X5 SUV to 100 countries. Aiming to develop technologies such as alternative-fuel engines and drive-by-wire (an electronic, joystick-controlled steering system), Milberg forged partnerships with Robert Bosch and Delphi Automotive. Karl Ludwigsen, an auto analyst in London, contends that a carmaker need not be huge to survive. Rather, he says, "you've got to be big in the segments in which you compete, and you've got to be competitive in those segments globally...
...agencies--from the irs to the FDA--have offices in town. Here only Customs and the National Guard carry side arms. The feds lack the troops to check every truck, so they inspect randomly. On an average day, about 8,000 trucks will cross here, hauling copper wire and auto parts into Mexico and bringing clock radios and car chassis back. Customs collects $619,000 in federal taxes and duties daily...
...hand, manufacturers from Ireland to Japan are streaming into town. Some 400 maquiladoras, or assembly plants, have all but eliminated unemployment in Juarez and have sown the seeds of a stable middle class, "not Mexicans with sombreros," says Miguel Angel Giron, 26, an accountant at an auto-parts factory. But all the problems that booming trade creates are concentrated here as well; the potable water in the cities' common aquifer is set to run out in 25 years; the air quality is imperiled; diseases are spreading, and they don't stop at the customs station. Presidents Fox and Bush talk...