Imagine yourself solving an arithmetic problem with the top managers of a leading Japanese automobile company. As a group, Japanese producers already export 2.3 million passenger vehicles a year to the United States. They are also building capacity for an additional 2.5 million vehicles in North America. You remind your friends across the table that the total U.S. market for automobiles is roughly 10 million units a year. How do they expect 4.8 million of them to be Japanese? What adjustments do they anticipate?
A version of this article appeared in the January–February 1989 issue of Harvard Business Review.
