For one, the S2 costs roughly $30,000 less than the comparably equipped, factory-direct Autobahn burner.
Automakers have spent billions equipping factories with low-emission paint shops.
Economic uncertainty is particularly cruel to automakers, which must risk billions developing new models and equipping factories years before the products come to market.
Besides making steel, primarily for automakers, Thyssen- Krupp also makes elevators, builds and equips factories, and manufactures submarines and other naval vessels.
"The last nine months have been very slow in our business," said Joachim Schönbeck, a member of the management board of SMS Group, a German company that builds and equips factories to produce steel and other metals.
Siemens said growth was driven by its bread-and-butter industry sector, which makes machine tools that large companies use to equip factories, automation gear to help industrial plants run smoothly and LED lightbulbs that cut luxury cars' energy bills.
Such flexibility, already common at most Japanese-owned plants in the U.S., is spreading through the industry as automakers race to equip factories with machines that can be programmed to build several body styles, depending on the whims of consumers.
Although Morris Motors under Lord Nuffield (an expert in mass motor-vehicle construction) at first managed and equipped the factory, it was funded by government money.
Building houses does not raise long-term economic growth in the way that equipping a factory does.
Equipping the factory in Devon cost about half a million pounds.
While continuing to make steel and armaments, it expanded into building and equipping factories and manufacturing elevators, among other things.
