Does the average American consumer know or care that GM owns Saturn? Or Toyota Scion? Nope. TTAC has been arguing since ever that brands are the heart and soul of any and all car companies; it's how people perceive the products vying for their patronage. Automotive News [AN, sub] has run an analysis of U.S. car sales by brand for the first nine months of '07, and there's blood all over the carpet. A cataclysmic shift leaves Toyota the undisputed king of cars. "The Japanese juggernaut slashed the retail sales gap with GM by 40 percent during the first eight months of 2007… GM's retail advantage dropped from 487,235 vehicles for that period last year to 282,677 vehicles this year. If current trends continue, AN predicts ToMoCo will wrest the overall number one spot from GM within four years (by 2011). In fact, the Chevrolet Impala is the only domestic vehicle that appears in the nine-month top-10 automotive list, trailing the Toyota Camry by over 100k units. (Take fleet sales out of that equation…) Meanwhile, "Honda has quiely risen to number three in U.S. car sales, looking at achieving 10 percent of the U.S. light-vehicle market by year's end. Ford has tanked. The Blue Oval Boyz' overall sales are down 13.3 percent. They've lost sales every month this year and dropped nearly two points of market share. In the upmarket automotive arena, Lexus is set to topple Cadillac as America's favorite luxury brand, heading for '07 totals that will beat Cadillac's best ever sales year.
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Funny thing is, when I told my mom-in-law that her infiniti was a Nissan, she freaked out and almost tried to return it to get an … Acura instead!
In the article, I assume you’re talking only sales cars, not trucks?
AKM:
Just car sales, except for the bit about Toyota overtaking GM for the no. 1 slot by 2011.
No kidding. It’s a refreshing experience to look at cars through the eyes of an automotive muggle – the kind who thinks buying a Pontiac Torrent instead of a Chevrolet Equinox is “going to the competition”. I know a lot of people who don’t even realize that Lexus is Japanese.
Really puts the importance of strong branding into context.
GM has 2 “relevant brands” chevy and cadillac, but what do they do with the rest of the mess?
thank god. its about time someone toppled caddy.
I just saw the new Malibu fold-out ad, and at the end there’s this blurb: “Only Chevrolet would think of selling a $35,000 car for substantially less.”
With that kind of thinking, 2011 might come just a little sooner.
EDIT: Given the identical hard points between the Epsilon sibs, should we “Camcord” them, and call them Maliura? or Auribu?
Ever heard the song “Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy” by Big & Rich put out in 2004?
“And I wouldn’t trade ol’ Leroy
or my Chevrolet for your Escalade
Or your freak parade”
Chevrolet for an Escalade… hmmm….
At risk of coming all “James May”, I really don’t know what people see in Cadillacs. They are hideous! Boxy like old Volvos but without the charm, nasty wheels and luxury without the class.
They are pretty good at handling (CTS and CTS-V engineered by testing at the Nurburgring), but doesn’t warrant buying one.
Please note how GM are trying to push Cadillac as a luxury brand in Europe (which was dumb of them considered they already a luxury brand established in europe which they didn’t captilise on, SAAB) and please also note how it is dying on its arse! Cadillacs just don’t work outside of North America. I hate to say it but the Germans have the Luxury market sewn up, but the Japanese are slowly busting it open again.
Toyota and Honda applied their “slow and steady” mantra and the organic growth paid off. Had they acquired companies to exapnd to the size they are now, they would have had the same problems as GM do in that what does each brand stand for? Many customers flock to Toyota and Honda for their reliable, quality driven (but boring) cars. In Europe, Toyota and Honda are trying to shake off their boring image by making cars like the Yaris and Aygo (ultra cute and hip), the Auris (move over Focus, there’s a new boy in town and he’s bringing reliability to the game), The new Civic (flash and eye striking) and the Accord (family sedans needn’t be boring any more).
Chevrolet do have a steady brand and GM can capitalise on it provided they don’t take advantage of their customer base. History dictate they will, but according to GM management “they’ve learnt their lesson”. We shall see……..
Well thats gotta be good news GM will still be standing in 2011.Shares trading at 42$,a new UAW / GM labour deal.
The new Malibu may not knock Toyota and Honda over,but its gonna land some punches.
GM is in the best position they have been in,for a long time.
Wall street seems to think so.
I,m sure theres gonna be more Death Watches and we are gonna have some more ups and downs If Toyota manages to hold number one,they won’t be there long.
An Escalade rolled past me yesterday. I had just parked my car and was heading down the sidewalk.
That is an incredibly ugly car – I have to confess, I burst out laughing. It had been a while since I’d last seen one, and I had probably forgotten how absolutely desperate the design is.
Cadillacs are doomed abroad, as a luxury brand. Sorry for getting a little political right now, but anything that closely identified with the American ethos isn’t going to get a lot of goodwill these days. I know tour guides who pretend they don’t know English when Americans ask for directions, which should tell you a lot.
Honda is set for avalanche roll-out success, building on the very simple mantra of “the best fuel efficiency in every category.” And if they can’t achieve it, they get out of the category. Turns out customers are open to that message.
Combine it with good after-sales, something GM dropped years ago, and you can’t go much wrong.
Ford is in the doldrums now — I remain convinced the brand will pick up wind, but it’s getting close to the “stick a knife in the mast” desperate kind of measure that ancient mariners resorted to when in similar straits.
In the internet age of search engines and Wikipedia, the fact that American consumers could be so utterly ignorant of the origins of their second most expensive purchase is . . . sad? . . . predictable?
Ever since I walked into the Ford display at the San Francisco Auto Show five years ago and couldn’t see any cars (they were discretely placed at the rear of the display, with all of the trucks and SUV’s in the forward position, it has become apparent that Detroit has ceded the car business to others. It’s just far too much trouble to compete with companies who are really working to improve the breed. Most of Toyota’s offerings aren’t my cup of tea as they are quite bland, I have to agree that they have changed the automotive world in their quest for silky-smooth engines and superb automatic transmissions.
No surprises there – the domestic 2.8 had neglected cars for over a decade in favor of easy SUV money so this should not come as a revelation to anyone. However, I would say its too early to extrapolate the current trend too far as the 2.8 are trying to remedy the situation (OK at least GM and Ford are trying).
Will Toyota care? Probably not – they’re too busy looking over their shoulder at Hyundai who are probably their greatest threat in the medium term.
Yes, Stein, GWB squandered the good will the entire world–even Iran!–had for the US right after 9-11. It boggles my mind that people voted for him the first time, when he so obviously didn’t know what he was talking about in the debates, but to vote for him the second time was beyond belief.
Katie, alas, Cadillac was once the very icon of luxury, and a fine piece of commercial art, so obviously about money, yet grand and graceful at the same time. Stylistically, these sharp-edged little things that wear the label today are to the luxobarges of the ’50s and ’60s what GWB is to his father, George Herbert Walker Bush.
But then, the difference in the American Fleet of today and of 40-50 years ago is like the difference between a world in black and white and a world in color. It wouldn’t matter if Cadillac were best in its class, but it’s not.
If you look purely at retail sales (fleet excluded) isn’t the Toyota brand already ahead of Chevy? Trucks and all included?
Stein X Leikanger: I know tour guides who pretend they don’t know English when Americans ask for directions, which should tell you a lot.
That said tour guides are dumb enough to cut off their nose to spite their face?
As has been explained before, the tensions between Europe and America have been building since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The Cold War allowed the U.S. and Europe to paper over lots of differences, and since the 1990s they have been coming to the fore, long before George W. Bush became president.
Yes, GM is not too bright in trying to sell Cadillacs in Europe, given that Europeans have lots of homegrown offerings that are better suited to their conditions and what they want in a luxury car. GM would be better advised to continue improving Opel/Vauxhall (which it has been doing).
But that isn’t George W. Bush’s fault.
I’ve read that Toyota’s efforts to sell luxury cars in Europe has flopped, too, and the last time I checked, George W. Bush isn’t the prime minister of Japan.
@ geeber
Didn’t mention Mr Bush, that was another poster.
Since the tour guides are swamped with requests by tourists from other nations, and the US dollar is worth a lot less, I don’t think the guides are foregoing a meal.
But anti-Americanism isn’t solely connected to Bush – there’s a general backlash against the domination of US franchise presences around the world, and against the cut-to-the-bone quality presented by these when they go to market.
It used to be that Made in the USA was a hallmark. No longer – which means that launching a US “luxury” car in Europe is probably not the best bet.
It boggles my mind that people voted for him the first time, when he so obviously didn’t know what he was talking about in the debates, but to vote for him the second time was beyond belief.
I’m not going to get into a political argument (this is not the place), but keep in mind that a majority put him in office. Twice. Against a sitting, relatively popular vice president, and a relatively popular U.S. Senator. What does that tell you?
The ‘war on terrorism’ (v. fundamental fanatics) has been centuries in the making.
Sorry but I don’t buy it. Almost everyone knows Saturn is a GM division.
The fact that many Scion buyers turned out to be old farts like me, rather than the hip young target market, means that lots of people of all ages know where Scion comes from.
As for Lexus, I’ve yet to meet a life form in this galaxy that doesn’t know it’s made by Toyota – I mean, that’s the whole point of Lexus.
The ‘war on terrorism’ (v. fundamental fanatics) has been centuries in the making.
I’d say in progress, and that current events are payback for the Crusades.