Automakers are entering their decluttering era

Automakers are taking a hard look at cutting costs. Many specialized vehicles and custom offerings are on the way out. Stellantis/© 2024 Stellantis Automakers are cutting overlapping models and reducing complexity amid fresh competition. Volkswagen and Toyota executives, for example, say too many variants are driving up costs. Shared platforms could make cars cheaper to build — and potentially cheaper to buy, execs hope. Chinese automakers are turning up the heat — and legacy car companies are responding by cutting complexity. Across the industry, auto executives are searching for ways to build vehicles more cheaply as lower-cost Chinese rivals expand into global markets. Their emerging strategy has one thing in common: decluttering. Automakers are pruning overlapping models, building vehicles with fewer parts, sharing more technology and production costs with partners , and rethinking how vehicles move from the design studio to the assembly line.