North America's automakers ran at 97% of their production capacity last year

Wards Auto began tracking North American light-vehicle production capacity utilization in 2005, and last year produced the highest amount on record: 97.8 percent of available production was utilized, an improvement of 9.3 percent versus the year before. The number represents straight-time capacity plus things like the addition of a third shift or a third crew and worker overtime due to less vacations. Production with straight-time capacity utilizing two shifts still came out to 97.1 percent in 2012, an improvement of 13.7 percent versus 2011.

Autoblog , North America's automakers ran at 97% of their production capacity last year, North America's automakers ran at 97% of their production capacity last year