Industry Statistics

Automotive Suppliers: It's What Inside That Counts

Each year American motorists collectively drive far enough to make 6 million roundtrips to the moon, 15,000 trips to the sun and back, or 200 complete trips around the entire solar system. They got to their destinations in vehicles built by and maintained with parts from motor vehicle product manufacturers.

• The global motor vehicle parts market exceeds $1 trillion. Suppliers' products account for more than two-thirds of the content on each vehicle.
• The automotive supplier industry is made up of nearly 12,000 manufacturing locations and employs approximately 830,000 workers. (These numbers do not include the hundreds of thousands of jobs in the textile, chemical, equipment and service-related industries.)
• The 219 million vehicles on U.S. roads drive nearly 3 trillion miles each year.
• The supplier industry is large and diverse. Annually, more than 300 different new light vehicle models are sold in the United States and each of these vehicles has more than 30,000 different parts.

U.S. Motor Vehicle Product Manufacturing Facilities

A Driving Force Behind the U.S. Economy

The automotive industry is America 's largest manufacturing industry as approximately 17 million vehicles are built in the United States each year. Suppliers' contributions are enormous as the industry represents approximately 2 percent of the nation's Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

• Automotive parts suppliers represent a significant sector of the U.S. economy. Industry sales for automotive parts manufacturing alone is $205 billion.
• The total of capital invested annually by auto parts manufacturers and suppliers in the United States totals just over $9 billion.
• Collectively, automobile supplier employees earn $47.7 billion a year.
• Automotive suppliers pay $1.5 billion in corporate income taxes-about 13% of the taxes paid by all durable goods manufacturers.

Innovation: A Supplier Cornerstone

Motor vehicle product manufacturers spend more than $20 billion a year on research and development-more than what was spent for medical equipment and pharmaceutical R&D combined. Suppliers are the backbone behind new innovations consumers enjoy to make their lives more productive, enjoyable and, of course, safer.

• Thanks to supplier safety innovations, well over 1 million lives have been saved over the past 30 years. Vehicles today are equipped with numerous safety devices including sophisticated occupant restraint and braking systems.
• Despite the fact that traffic has more than doubled, fatalities have dropped from nearly 55,000 in 1972 to 42, 815 in 2002, and the trend continues as newer vehicle replace the older vehicles in the population.
• Cars are high tech as well as safe. Computers in a car now number approximately 18. Computers oversee the operation of such items as airbags, anti-lock brakes, engine control modules (ECM), climate control and adaptive suspension systems. Computers help enable the vehicle to be more reliable, fuel- efficient, safer and easier to diagnose for repair.
• Automotive use of semiconductors alone amounts to over $4 billion annually and electronic systems in cars account for more than 20% of their cost.

Fatality Rate Per 100 Million VMT

Source: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

Suppliers Working to Improve the Environment

The supplier industry is primarily responsible for making vehicles more environmentally friendly. The results of supplier research and development have been many, such as clearner running vehicles, increased fuel economy and the use of more recyclable materials and products.

• Automotive recycling is 69% of all recycling in the U.S. ; and as much as 75% of each scrapped vehicle today can be recycled.
• Remanufacturing parts is a $36 billion dollar industry that saves consumers as much as 50% of the price of repair parts for their automobiles.
• Today's cars and trucks produce 90% less carbon monoxide than those of the 1960's.

Trend in Total Criteria Pollutant Emissions From Motor Vehicles for the U.S.

Source: Foundation for Clean Air Progress