Research and Markets: Despite Broad Adoption of Platform Strategies Sharing of Base Vehicle Technologies Does Not Appear to Have Increased

DUBLIN, Ireland--Nov. 1, 20046, 2004--Research and Markets has announced the addition of "An analysis of the top 100 global automotive manufacturing platforms" to their offering.

Despite the broad adoption of platform strategies, and the continued consolidation of vehicle brands, sharing of base vehicle technologies does not appear to have increased in the last five years. Rather than being used as a means for improving efficiency and lowering cost, platforms are a way for vehicle manufacturers to add more models and variants. As model proliferation increases vehicle manufacturers are finding it difficult to add more volume per platform.

GM is one of the only companies that has managed to dramatically increase scale. 1.66m vehicles were sold in 2003 with the GMT800 full-size platform as underpinnings, making this the largest platform in the world.

Information provided in this report includes:

-- Striving for commonisation

-- Architectures versus platforms

-- The platform statistics

-- Volumes per platform

-- Average sales volumes per platform, 2003

-- Manufacturers

-- Volkswagen Group

-- Honda

-- PSA

-- Renault-Nissan

-- Renault-Nissan Platform Consolidation

-- Toyota

-- GM

-- Major GM group platform architectures

-- Ford

-- DaimlerChrysler

-- Top 100 platforms - 2003 sales

For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/c9421