斯巴鲁Could Be In Serious Trouble

The current state of the auto industry is taking a toll on Subaru, one of Japan's smallest automakers. Giants like Honda and Toyota have been able tobetter navigatethe global semiconductor chip shortage crisis thanks to more diversified and greater production capabilities. Subaru, however, has only one factory in the US, in Lafayette, Indiana but nearly 75 percent of its global models are built in Japan. The斯巴鲁Ascent, Impreza, Legacy, andOutbackare US-built. The rest comes from overseas, including thejust-revealed Solterra. That's the ideal recipe for a supply problem.

Automotive Newsreports that Subaru is currently experiencing a two-year sales decline, something that hasn't happened since the 1990s. It hopes to see a sales recovery next year. Total sales for this year are not expected to hit 600,000 units though it's still a little too early to get a final tally.

CEO Tomomi Nakamura admitted that he's taking a wait-and-see approach, especially post-Thanksgiving. To compare, Subaru sold nearly 612,000 vehicles in the US in 2020, a 12.6 percent decrease compared to 2019 when it set a record high. The last time Subaru had a sales decline in the US two years in a row was in 1995 and 1996. Since then, sales have dropped only three times but recovered the following year.

The good news is that this isn't the first time Subaru has experienced hardship and managed to overcome it. For example, sales decreased every year beginning in 1987 until 1995. Subaru's fortunes began to change in '95 thanks mainly to the introduction of one key model, the Outback.