Where Cars Go To Die

[wonderpup]

Morbidly fascinating look at the numbers of unsold cars piling up worldwide. It's a car free recovery.

Worth a look just for the amazing photo's

http://www.vincelewis.net/unsoldcars.html

[interestrateripoff]

Incredible.

It seems certain they won't be sold of cheap that would be too much like capitalism.

[renting til I die]

Morbidly fascinating look at the numbers of unsold cars piling up worldwide. It's a car free recovery.

Worth a look just for the amazing photo's

http://www.vincelewis.net/unsoldcars.html

I wonder how true this is? Surely car companies could not afford to let unsold cars pile up like that, at least not for more than a few months? Are there any other sources to confirm this story?

[Horridbloke]

How very Midas Plague.

[SNACR]

I wonder how true this is? Surely car companies could not afford to let unsold cars pile up like that, at least not for more than a few months? Are there any other sources to confirm this story?

Depends if you consider the car industry a normal private business or a state subsidised and controlled make work enterprise.

[Corruption]

This is utter nonsense and lies from some fool with a website, they have always stored cars prior to being exported and with more cars being exported theyre bound to need more storage.

Its just boll0x from a fool with a computer and no data to back up his lies.

Edited May 17, 2014 by Corruption

[SNACR]

This is utter nonsense and lies from some fool with a website, they have always stored cars prior to being exported and with more cars being exported theyre bound to need more storage.

Its just boll0x from a fool with a computer and no data to back up his lies.

Surely the industry that brought the world 'just-in-time' logistics should therefore be storing them in Johnny Foreigner main dealer's showroom rather than their test track.

[Corruption]

Surely the industry that brought the world 'just-in-time' logistics should therefore be storing them in Johnny Foreigner main dealer's showroom rather than their test track.

I must hve imagined those 1000s of cars at Soton docks for as long as i can remember.

But you believe this nutjobs website.

[Frank Hovis]

There's a huge holding area for cars at Avonmouth that I see when I drive up the M5. That was absolutely full prior to the scrappage scheme coming in, the last time I saw it (March) it was down to about a third full to my casual glance. Which is about as empty as it gets, and I've been driving past it on and off for about fifteen years.

So I don't believe the original linky; and we've been reading stories about huge numbers of new registrations over the past two years so they are selling.

[19 year mortgage 8itch]

There's a huge holding area for cars at Avonmouth that I see when I drive up the M5. That was absolutely full prior to the scrappage scheme coming in, the last time I saw it (March) it was down to about a third full to my casual glance. Which is about as empty as it gets, and I've been driving past it on and off for about fifteen years.

So I don't believe the original linky; and we've been reading stories about huge numbers of new registrations over the past two years so they are selling.

But over 80% of cars manufactured in the UK are exported and we import 80%+ of the new cars we buy/register.

European market really under the cosh.

[longtomsilver2]

They've been storing cars like this for as long as I remember and as far back as thirty years when my brother-in-law used to take new cars from a place as such in Milton Keynes for a joyride (when they could be hot wired). He's a barrister now.

[SNACR]

When I last went to Avonmouth just up the road from Yankee Candle there were masses of cars parked in huge yards. I don't think you can see them from the motorway.

Edit to add: I bet there aren't runways anywhere of the car models that are known to be selling well/is a waiting list.

Edited May 17, 2014 by SNACR

[MarkG]

I'm sure there are stocks of unsold cars somewhere--GM apparently takes six months or more to sell some of its cars--but I doubt this is them. If you search the web, you'll find that some of these pictures were taken five years ago!

Oh, and the BBC are reporting a 4.6% increase in EU car sales since last year, which makes it seem even less likely if those numbers can be believed.

[StainlessSteelCat]

It's a story I'd like to believe, but the link seems to be full of assertions rather than evidence. The pictures are a snapshot in time and I've no idea from the story whether it represents a normal state of affairs even in boom times.

They even talk about the cars disappearing but chooses to believe they are being recycled rather than the more obvious explanation of actually being sold.

[The Knimbies who say No]

Minimal Googling suggests some of these photos are from over five years ago.

eg the Sunderland test track one appears in a Guardian photobook from January 2009, yet the linked webpage posts the photo under an 'update' from two days ago (16th May 2014). The Guardian series shows the Sheerness one too, which it describes as imported cars waiting for delivery to dealers.

I suspect if the resolutions was good enough on many of these shots, you'd be looking at a variety of old-shape models.

Edited May 18, 2014 by The Knimbies who say no

[long time lurking]

I must hve imagined those 1000s of cars at Soton docks for as long as i can remember.

But you believe this nutjobs website.

+1 Same as Avonmouth /Grimsby docks

I would start to worry when you see no cars there

[Scunnered]

This is utter nonsense and lies from some fool with a website, they have always stored cars prior to being exported and with more cars being exported theyre bound to need more storage.

Its just boll0x from a fool with a computer and no data to back up his lies.

Come, come. It does say at the bottom of the page

Yes I'm also an author and my book on conspiracy theories has no correlation whatsoever with this webpage.

Yeah, that's what he wants you to think...

[winkie]

Just think of all the wages that must have been paid, money that went into making all those cars nobody can buy because they have far too many other important things to pay for with the money they earn.....so they stick with what they already have. If it works why fix or change it?....Lowering the price is not an option, remember the butter mountains, all the milk that was poured down the drain, tomatoes left to rot etc etc.

[Bloo Loo]

Ok, so I was thinking that clearly there is an issue to store cars between manufacturer and dealer.

Thousands of cars every day, leave the assembly lines..then I thought, they are driven off, by a driver..why arent they dropped to the car carrier?...OK they need buffer, but ultimately, all these cars are supposed to be delivered...

These huge car parks are a huge buffer. too large I feel.

[OnionTerror]

A family member of mine transports cars across the country....On a few occasions, he's pulled new cars out of hedges (that have been sitting there for perhaps 12 to 18 months) and have been covered in moss..quick wash, and its sold as new...Each of the cars have this waxy type coating on them.

[Rave]

I'm quite drunk, so I'm not going to cite my sources. But I'm not so drunk that I can't remember what I've read over the last five years, and I like cars, and am interested in them. So DYOR and prove me wrong if I'm wrong!

Yes it's a conspiracy site and makes some ludicrous claims (like that there are more cars than people in the world...LOL! ). And the pics are from five years ago- which is roughly when Honda Swindon had to stop operating three shifts. My memory is crap but a few years ago, I think it was late 2010, I took my wife down to Southampton for the day, for no better reason than I'd bought return tickets for us both on Megatrain for £4.50, I used to live there, and I fancied a day out. I wanted to show her the Harbour Lights cinema; we ended up in the docks by mistake and I saw hundreds of new LHD Civics that had clearly been there for a while. I know the big Ro-Ro car transporters only come in every couple of weeks, but these looked, from indicators like dirt on the windcreens, that they'd been there for months.

I tend to read Autocar every week, and they regularly talk about overcapacity in European car production. They've obviously got absolutely no interest in talking down demand for new cars- quite the reverse!

It's often stated that GM's European operation (Opel/Vauxhall, and until recently Saab) hasn't made a profit in 20 years. I'm a Ford man myself, as I decided long ago that life's too short to drive a car that doesn't handle , but equally I reckon it's fair to say that the last car they made that wasn't up to scratch was the Vectra. The Mk4 Astra may not have been a great driver's car, but just look at how many of them are still going now! They don't go wrong. And so I wonder if the bald statement that their manufacturing operations always made a loss might be compensated for by the fact that their finance operation coined it in...

As far as I can tell the big Zombie car manufacturer in Europe is PSA- majority owned by the French State, they make way more cars than they can sell, but simply cannot lay off workers due to union/public pressure. GM wanted to close Ellesmere Port but didn't...I like to think that it was because someone pointed out to the German government that closing the most efficient GM plant in Europe and keeping the rest might cast an unflattering light on the Common Market...one can but hope!

I might add some structure and evidence to this when I sober up.

[Wurzel Of Highbridge]

I see this zerohedge article posted and shared on my facebook account which is surprising. It's great that this article is giving ZeroHedge a wider audience.

[notMyName]

I used to work security on one of these car storage areas near Grimsby, there are around 3 or 4 of them in that area. There is a constant movement of hundreds of cars arriving by ship, and then they get moved out by the car transport lorries a few at a time. They places are generally full, but most of the cars are only there for a couple of weeks really. This was a few years ago now, so things may be different, but I doubt it.

[crashmonitor]

There's been new car deflation going on for about ten years now. There's the sucker list price and the pre-registered price, still a new car at about 70% of that........eg. you can pick up a new Peugeot 107 for less than £7,000 against a list price of 10k. Basically the world and especially the EU is using the UK as dumping ground for over production.

Deflation bring it on......

[notMyName]

Hmm, I just checked the place I used to work at on google maps, and it is at least 5 times bigger than it was. Used to take an hour to walk round back then. Make of that what you will