汽车工业出现一百多年来空间组织发生了几次重要变化，而生产方式的转变是导致空间演化的主导因素之一。本文首先回顾了８０年代以前世界汽车工业空间组织的主要特征，并将其演化过程归纳为四个阶段，即初始分散阶段、大规模生产初期的高度集中阶段、“核心—边缘”结构阶段和网络化分散阶段。其次介绍了８０年代以来世界汽车工业发展的新特点，特别是精益生产方式的广泛扩散。最后归纳了新的生产方式下汽车工业空间组织的影响因素和特征，即网络化聚集，并简要地讨论了这种发展趋势对中国汽车工业的启示。

he automotive industry is one of the traditional but never “aging” manufacturing sectors. It has been being vigorous in the last one hundred years in terms of expansion, restructuring and continuous adoption of new technologies. At the same time, the spatial organization of the industry has also experienced several important changes, and the change of production pattern is one of the major factors behind the dynamics of its spatial evolution. In this paper, the authors first review the major features of the spatial organization of the world automotive industry before the 1980s and summarize its spatial evolution into four stages, i.e. the beginning dispersed development under the artisanal craft based production method, and highly concentrated development, “core peripheral” decentralization and network decentralization periods under mass production. They then analyze recent new developments of the industry after the 1980s, particularly the widespread of lean production, and identify the features of the spatial organization of the industry under the new production pattern and factors behind it. Lastly, they discuss briefly implications of these new developments for China’s automotive industry.