- The evolution of global automobile production (top 15 producing countries) between the first 9 months of 2012 and the first 9 months of 2013 reveals some significant changes.

- If the first eight countries remain the same from one year to the next, with China in first position, far ahead of the United States, Japan, Germany, South Korea, India, Brazil and Mexico. The ninth place this year is attributed to Thailand which has over taken Canada.

- Russia retains its eleventh place, the twelfth place this year is attributed to Spain that has overtaken France.

- Britain (fourteenth place) in 2013 remains closely behind France. The production of commercial vehicles has once again allowed France to stay ahead of the UK but the situation in coming months remain unsure. The arrival of the Renault Trafic and Nissan Primastar in Sandouville (France)  should logically consolidate the volume of the French car production. This launch has been delayed several times and no one today knows exactly when it will be effective.

- In fifteenth position, Indonesia has overtaken the Czech Republic, this is proof that the countries of South East Asia (we saw above the good performance of Thailand) are booming, even more so than Eastern European countries that have made great
progress over the past decade. 

  

- Such as the general brands Ford, Opel and Fiat, French brands have abandoned  the production of cars from segment E in Europe. The last segment E car produced was the Citroën C6.

- Premium German manufacturers such as Audi, BMW and Mercedes have indeed monopolized almost the entire segment.

- On the graphs below, one can see that from one generation to the next,  French segment  E models have seen their influence drop and eventually disappear in 2012. 2012 is the year the Citroën C6 was last produced and marked the end of French manufacturing of segment E cars produced Europe.

- As a result,  top of the range French brands are only represented today by D-segment cars(Renault Laguna, Renault Espace, Peugeot 508, Citroen C5) that in turn have lost much influence over the past ten years, for the same reasons.

- Ford and Opel, are experiencing the same phenomenon (Ford Mondeo, Opel Insignia). Fiat is focusing on segments A and B (Fiat 500, Panda, Punto), abandoning D and C segments (Fiat Bravo).

- Volkswagen does not market any vehicles from segment E but has a strong presence in segment D with the Passat and the CC, and has one vehicle in segment F, the Phaeton.