Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-06-16
DATA ASSEMBLED
ON MOTOR MARKET
Statistics Show Only 1900,
600 Cars Absorbed Abroad
Annually.
Special Dispatch to The Star.


DETROIT, Mich, June 15.-General
Motors Corporation and its Michigan
plants have been playing host for the
first time to that division of Its execu-
tive forces which has the job of selling
cars to the world.
There are about so of these men, and
they have been in session three weeks
at Shawnee-o Pa, listening
to talks, getting acquainted comparing
notes and absorbing knowledge.
They are men who in future years
will be the magnates of manufacturing
and distribution In territory said to in
clude 104 countries.
The chief of them all Is James D.
Mooney, a vice president of General
Motors and president and general man.
ager Of the General Motors Export
Corporation, perhaps the most impor-
tant of any of the G. M. c. divisions
from the standpoint of future POSSIBLE
tiles.
Data Assembled.
Mooney and his staff, in preparing
the conference, assembled data about
the world market for motor transpor-
tation. AS foreign countries are buying
American cars at the rate of more than
cent of the 100000 minimum Ameri-
can plants expect to build this year,
Some of the high points in Mr..
MONEYS survey are worth detailing.
Here are few of them:
The market abroad covers seven and
one-half times as much territory as the
market In the United States.
1t contains twelve and one-half times
as many inhabitants, but at present alb
serbs approximately only 100000 auto
mobiles q year.
Seventy EIGHT per cent Of the esti-
mated number of cars in the world are
now in use in the United States. which
builds "a per cent of all the cars pro-
duced In the world.
The other important producing coun-
tries are Canada, SO per cent; England,
AZ per cent; France, SO per cent; Ger
many, la per cent, and Italy, ! per
cent
All other producing countries COM
bined account for only 06 per cent OF
the worlds total.
One in Seventy Has Car.
Incidentally it may be repeated here
that the United States Department OF
Commerce figures issued during the
| week show that on January as many
! as 24,629, 92l motor vehicles were in OPP
Grafton in the United States. While
| there is ! car in America for every Sc
| persons, the world average is only l to
every 20 persons. The world total OF
automobiles January / was 29,687 ,499.
In Mr.. Moneys opinion, for various
reasons chiefly economic, there are great
numbers of people throughout the world
| who never will be able to enjoy individ-
/ ual transportation, but the need and de-
sire for transportation exist throughout
| the universe.
There are masses of people, white
| yellow, black and brown, who have Suff1-
cient income to enable them to ride on
pay-as-you-go basis" Mr.. Mooney
| finds. so many more people exist who
can afford to ride and to have their
| goods hauled on this basis than car
afford to own and operate individual
automobiles that 1t seems the only
method of putting the world on wheels
rapidly is to provide satisfactory organ
! lied communal transportation.
| Communal transportation Mr.. Mooney
recalls from earlier dayS-when four OF
| five workmen would join in the pur-
| chase of a low price car and use IL
between home and plant, sharing the
| expense of operation and maintenance
This he terms communal transportation
| on q small scale, providing low-cost
| transportation to a limited few.
New Product Favored.
| The taX1cab Mr.. Mooney refers to As
such a type of transportation, with
limited capacity. Motor coaches he re-
CARDS as a form of organized communal
transportation on large scale. BY nc
other means than these, Mr.. Mooney
believes, will we be able within ouI
time to put the rest of the world on
| wheels.
To satisfy the world eagerness to ride
and at the same time to cope with
conditions abroad which call for the
| lowest cost vehicles, Mr.. Mooney advo-
Gates the turning out by American
| makers OF an entirely new product in
| the form of light car He points out
| that it should be smaller and lighter
than the smallest present American car
and less expensive to own and operate
Included among the so executives who
participated in the sessions were re-
| gional directors of the General Motors
export divisions in Europe, South
| America, the Far East and the Carib-
| bean countries, executives from the
| New York Offices and managing direc-
tors of assembly plants in many coun-
! tries.
| (Copyright, 1899, by North American News
paper Alliance.)