Half the Worlds Auto Warranties?
In the ten charts that follow, we will attempt to enhance the story told in the July 2 newsletter, adding in the fresh data for VW, BMW and Fiat, and including the corresponding data for GM and Ford, as well as repeating the data for Daimler, Toyota, and Honda. These eight OEMs easily control more than half of the world’s passenger car and light truck production, and probably also pay most of the industry’s warranty claims. Let’s start with BMW. Officially called the Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, the German company is known throughout the world for its luxury passenger cars. But as we shall see, last year it apparently set aside the lowest proportion of revenue among its peers to finance future warranty claims, and made the second-lowest amount of warranty accruals per vehicle. In Figure 1, we’re tracking the total amount of claims and accruals for BMW, or in European accounting terminology, its utilizations and additions. Claims are in red and accruals are in green. We’ve left the data
