Do you remember when Saturn made a last ditch attempt to bring customers back to their showrooms? It asked us to “Rethink” Saturn. Whatever our perception was of them, we almost certainly had it wrong and we had to check them out once more. Ford did a similar thing with “Have you driven a Ford lately?” It’s quite a clever strategy, convince the customer that they had it wrong about your product and invite them to try them again. Well, Toyota seems to trying a similar tactic in order to woo customers back and polish up their corporate image. Now at this point you’re expecting me to unveil some hokey advert which asks us “Try Toyota” (if Toyota is reading this, give me a call and we can work out a licensing fee for my ad slogan). Wrong. It’s not their products. They are fine.
Toyota asks us to rethink the meaning of recall. Read More >
I recently attended a fancy-pants dinner held by Chrysler PR for some Houston-area bloggers. We were wined, dined and introduced to the 2011 Grand Cherokee. While free food and journalistic integrity are a tough combo to swallow, I found something entertaining and inherently blog worthy: the castrated 2011 Ford Explorer is in the new Grand Cherokee’s gunsight. Why? One of the SUV’s most famous nameplates is now a crossover, while another is still an SUV. But neither of them like being called names.
Automotive News [sub] takes a stab at calculating the numbers that Detroit doesn’t want you to see. Best of all, AN says the numbers are based on “internal documents.” During this morning’s financial results conference call, Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne railed against AN’s “crusade,” implying that the industry paper of record is nursing a vendetta against Chrysler… which is usually a good sign that a media outlet is doing its job well. It’s also a sign that Marchionne knows his firm’s fleet dependence is a problem.
When Apple releases a new product, people wait in line for it. Steve Jobs talks, everyone buys. Apple often runs out of stuff that is in high demand. Usually, people will wait. Hyundai has a similar problem. But maybe not a similar solution. Read More >
There seems to be an appetite debate about this issue, not just here at TTAC but in the industry as a whole. Just look the philosophical divide between the “One Ford” strategy and Volkswagen’s 2011 Jetta strategy. So instead of filling up the Jetta review comments with this debate, let’s have it out… right here, right now.
Just how American is the new Volkswagen Jetta? When a German car company comes out with a new car, they usually release it in Germany first, so the Teutonic car bible Auto Motor und Sport can run a big multi-page review in the front of the magazine. Not only was the 2011 Jetta launched in the US, but the latest issue of AM und S carried only a half-page mini-review. In the final paragraph, the buff book explains that smaller gas engines and a variety of diesels should be available for Germany, and that
Here [in Germany], the comfortable Jetta will get a higher-quality appointments/equipment (hochwertigere Ausstattung) as well as a multi-link rear suspension.
The hochwertigere Ausstattung line is (purposefully?) vague, and could mean that the German-market Jetta will get a better-quality interior (as implied by the caption “US version with hard plastic and simple instruments”) or that it will simply come with a higher equipment level. In any case, don’t expect the German market to be thrilled by the version that we drove. Or that VW’s “Das Auto” tagline means much of anything to our Mexican-built Jetta.
Tesla cars are still hard to get and hard to find, but it’s not for a lack of international distribution. Soon, it will be easier to buy a Tesla out of the country than in the country. From April to June, Tesla Motors opened showrooms in Copenhagen and two other parts of the world, reports The Nikkei [sub] By the end of the year it plans to open three more showrooms in Tokyo, Paris and Milan.
Hush. Don’t tell American GM customers how GM’s Opel subsidiary plans to prop up seriously flagging sales. Opel can use a serious injection of something. Opel’s German sales were down by 43.5 percent in July. And Opel doesn’t have China to save their necks. Today, Opel announced their version of the Ardennen-Offensive: A last massive strike at the hearts and minds (and pocketbooks) of their customers. A warranty for life. As they say: Read the fine print. Read More >
New vehicle buyers who are influenced by motorsports typically love cars and trucks and they are opinion leaders for other car buyers – they give an average of 25 or more vehicle recommendations per year to others. More importantly people follow their advice – and we have measured it. So, there is a downstream impact from the races in the form of on-going word of mouth recommendations. That’s why we say that the roar from a race car continues away from the track.
Steve Bruyn, President of Foresight Research breaks down an intriguing finding from his firm’s “2010: Automotive Marketing Return On Investment” study [via PRNewswire]. What makes Foresight’s finding so strange is that from Formula One to NASCAR, OEMs have been grumbling about the irrelevance of major race series to their automotive products. Meanwhile, there’s no shortage of anecdotal evidence to suggest that automotive enthusiasm is on the decline in general, a reality which implies that racing is less important to automotive buying decisions than ever. So just how effective is the oldest form of automotive marketing? Read More >
In the market for a new Toyota Corolla? Now is the time. Your friendly Toyota dealer will lease you a well-equipped Toyota Corolla for just $189 a month for three years. With a little shopping around, your monthly payments can be below $150. This may be a great deal for you. “For Toyota, the deal could be a financial disaster,” reports an aghast Freep. “To keep customers coming to its showrooms amid a series of embarrassing recalls, Toyota has been offering some of its best leasing terms in years.” Read More >
This, ladies and gentlemen, is a moment we’ve been waiting for for some time… which might explain why the news isn’t particularly earth-shattering [press release here]. Yes, believe it or not, the Volt will cost $41,000 base including destination charge, just as every bit of speculation has indicated since the Volt was first announced. Perhaps more surprising is GM’s announcement of lease deals starting at $350/month for 36 months with $2,500 down. But just as GM has found with its CTS, moving high-cost American-branded metal in any kind of volume tends to require heavy dependence on leases. Plus, the fact that the big question mark surrounding EVs in general continues to be long-term battery life makes leasing the obvious option for those who are tempted by the Volt, but don’t want own a lot of expensive, unproven technology. On the other hand, the Feds don’t subsidize EV leases, and with a Federal tax credit, the Volt’s price drops to a mere $33,500… which is less than a thousand dollars more than the Nissan Leaf’s base price (without tax credit, $25,280 with). Obviously the Volt has certain advantages due to its EREV design, but with the economy still shaky, the Volt’s hefty price premium will work against it, especially as volume builds. Seeing how these two very different EVs do relative to one another will make for some interesting lessons about the future of the electric car.
The Fiat brand returns to the US later this year, spearheaded by the Mexican-built 500 minicar and followed next year by Abarth and convertible versions of the A-segment hatchback. With some 200 Chrysler dealers in major urban centers preparing to add the Fiat brand to their portfolios, Automotive News [sub] reports that the brand hopes to reach at least 50k units and as many as 100k units by next year. For comparison, the MINI brand sold 45,293 units in the last 12 months (ending in June) and 48,562 in the previous 12 months. Read More >
Last week, the big news coming out of Ford was that the new Lincoln MKZ would be available with a hybrid drivetrain as a no-cost option. With Mercury on its way out, and Lincoln struggling to carve out a niche in the luxury space, that move made a certain amount of sense at the time. What we didn’t know until today is that the “free” hybrid option on the MKZ was only Ford’s opening salvo on the status quo of automotive drivetrain option pricing. Today, with the 2011 Explorer dominating the news cycle, Ford has announced its latest head-scratcher: making the four-cylinder “Ecoboost” engine option more expensive than the more powerful standard V6. Yes, really.
The automotive world largely yawned when Ford announced the 2011 Lincoln MKZ hybrid. After all, Ford already offered the Fusion and Mercury Milan in hybrid flavor, and the standard MKZ is hardly setting the world on fire with only 11,214 models sold in the first half of 2010. In search of a bigger publicity bump for its luxury hybrid, Ford has pulled a fun little gimmick out of its bag of tricks: the 2011 MKZ will offer a hybrid drivetrain for no price premium over the standard V6 version [press release here]. According to the AP [via Yahoo], this is the first time a manufacturer has offered hybrid and non-hybrid versions of the same car for the same price. And really, the move comes as no huge surprise. With Mercury on its way out, Ford doesn’t have to worry about the$35,180 MKZ Hybrid encroaching on the $32k Milan Hybrid, and if it had charged a hybrid premium, the MKZ hybrid could have cost closer to $40k where it would have faced tougher competition from better-established luxury brands. Besides, Lincoln needs to build some momentum somehow… but is value a good place to start rebuilding a worn-down luxury brand?
With Ford and Honda running away with the compact crossover segment, a tight pack of competitors is gathering around the 100k annual unit mark (graph after the jump). Hyundai has already thrown its redesigned Sorento into this fearsome battle with promising results so far (20k units YTD), but Kia’s Sportage has been battling in this segment since before it was cool. Literally. As far as we can tell, it’s the oldest continuously-sold compact CUV nameplate in the US market… which makes you wonder what a continuously-evolved Chevy Tracker might have become. Anyway, after years of Tracker-like neglect, Sportage is coming back with a fresh set of Peter Schreyer-tailored duds. Not to mention a direct-injection, turbocharged engine option (“270-plus horsepower” according to the press release), Bluetooth, and the UVO hands-free system (think SYNC). As you can imagine, the price has gone up some…
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