Detroit’s automakers and America’s car dealers aren’t the only parts of the car industry feeling the heavy hand of the current economic malaise. Business at Pasha Automotive Services at the National City Marine Terminal has been off by 30% this year, according to a Pasha spokesman.
In good times, the Port of San Diego has boasted that one of every eight new cars in the United States entered the country through the Pasha operation, with up to 400,000 vehicles first touching US soil in National City. Even now, the scene at the 150-acre site right after underloading of one of the giant waterborne automotive carriers is pretty staggering. The vehicles are shrink-wrapped in a tight white plastic material to protect them from seagull droppings, salt air, and other environmental insults. Enough windshield is exposed so that the workers can drive the cars and trucks off the boats, rather than winching them off, an improvement that has shrunk the unloading by almost 90% and decreased wear and tear on the vehicles.
Once unloaded, the Hondas, Nissans, Mazdas, Audis, and other products undergo customization by the workers; Mitsubishi and Isuzu trucks receive the identifying badges that will distinguish them into five different brands. Anywhere between 30 and 100 workers may climb in and out of every vehicle before it moves on to its next journey.
For most of the cars, the destination will be a dealership somewhere in California, though a substantial minority travel farther — on to the Southeast, Midwest, and other parts of the Southwest. About half move out on trucks, while the rest are driven into special rail cars.
If and when Americans start buying cars again, the local facility has plenty of capacity to process them. The dock is roomy enough to accommodate five of the giant car-carrying ships at a time, and the terminal can accommodate 120 rail cars, capable of hauling away some 1500 cars, per day.
