I still want a diesel-hybrid pickup!
You can read the article for the gory details. Nothing surprising — the bad news falls where you’d expect — same for the good news.
For the first seven months of the year, Ford’s sales fell 9.7 percent, GM’s sales were down 14.1 percent, and Chrysler’s sales fell 10.4 percent. Toyota’s and Honda’s sales rose 10.1 percent and 6.9 percent, respectively, while Nissan’s fell 7.9 percent.
Why is Nissan out of the loop? I agree with the article — they’re boring.
What are they doing about it? They’re going to work together with Renault and GM — boring and dumb!
Nissan more boring than Honda? No way.
“Honda Styling” is like an oxymoron. Their engines are rock solid, but they lack the verve that the Nissan engines do. I like Nissan’s styling too, much more aggressive.
However, Honda’s have a reputation for being damn solid, damn dependent, and damn efficient.
For whatever reason, Nissans seem to really appeal to a niche in the market, rather than to the market as a whole…. a shame, because they really do have some great cars. My family has 2 Altimas for a combined total of about 400k miles. They’ve been fairly dependable, although one of them seems to eat starters.
Oh well, on the whole I agree…. US automakers better get off their duffs and create something “new and exciting.” My theory is that they are SO AFRAID of losing an existing customer they won’t do anything risky that might attract a new customer. To wit: How long did it take GM to move their Cruise control buttons to the steering wheel? Have they even done that yet? “Our customers want that extra stalk” Well, maybe your existing customers do, but what about the other 80% of the market? Do you really think a customer is going to leave you over the cruise control stalk? Who would they go to? EVERY other automaker puts them on the steering wheel because its so damn convenient.
Enough rant.
So Japanese cars made in the US are more popular than US cars made in Mexico? Where’s the story?
It’s not just that a lot of American cars come off as lame, it’s also that a lot of American car dealers are so pressed by the loss they’re screwing customers everywhere they can on in-demand models to get some margin. I leased a new Caliber at Manhattan Dodge, and they charged me $100 for the roll-up cover for the rear cargo area. The cheapest Hundai gives you a cargo cover for free.
Saggy — if you’re going to quote Wall Street, get it right. GM showed a profitable quarter only as the result of everything they’ve been selling off. By the same token, they’re buy-out of employees taking early retirement will make things look even worse than it is — when it hits the books.
I’d bet their market share is down; but, you can spell G-O-O-G-L-E as well as anyone else.
Nissan cars have great styling but generally lousy MPG compared to Toyota and Honda
Why is it that people still have this idea that Toyota makes “nicer” cars than GM? Every time I look at “comparable” models, I find that the toyota is 4-7K MORE to buy, and sure as hell should be a better car.
Quick example – I just bought a ’06 Chevy Impala about 6 weeks ago. To get a car with similar options, eg. Toyota Avalon, I would’ve paid 12K more! I could buy another car for that! I paid 17K (even) for my impala (before counting my trade-in, after that I got it for 12.5, nice).
The avalon was 29K! And the only extras it had over my impala was a 6 disc changer and a sunroof. THAT”S IT! So maybe the interior is a bit more “bland” than the toyota. So what. 12K! It’s crazy that these two would be compared directly. But people do it everyday and say “Toyota is better”. For that much money it better be.
Impala got the same safety rating as the Avalon from the IIHS, has MORE room and cost 12K less. That frikin GM and their cheaper cars.
6: Is that just recently, or has it been true for a while?
I have a 1999 Sabre (Pulsar, South African model, beautiful car) 1.6, and despite having electric windows and air-conditioning, I still get about 11.7km/l (27mpg) in city traffic and 15.3km/l (36mpg) on long-distance trips.
If GM can figure out how to get SUV buyers to buy something else, they may have a chance. When I am on the road and see a SUV, I count how many people are in it. Usually it is just one or two people. It is the American lifestyle that forces people to buy a big SUV just to haul around one or two people.
7: Toyota generally likes people to pay through the nose for anything extra. When I was looking to buy a new car, their base model had NO extras, yet cost about the same as a (relatively) nicely-outfitted entry-level VW.
For folks unfamiliar with the 2 cars compared by Tim Champ, it’s like comparing Photoshop [Avalon] to iPhoto [Impala]. And avoiding the cost of Photoshop.
I use both software packages; but, it ain’t Oranges and Oranges.
11: No, it more like comparing Word to OpenOffice – sure, word is nicer, but it costs a whole heck of a lot more.
And after driving both the Avalon and Impala, I’m inclined to say the Impala is a lot closes to the Avalon than anyone at Toyota wants you to think.
Good: More Priuses for my Mustang to pass.
Something that’s always bugged me about Honda/Toyata cars is the “perceived” value or notion that they are “rock solid” that persists among the general populace. People who don’t even know what a clutch does will instantly tell you how well built a Honda is. Does anyone know of any real stats on this subject? Like frequency of warrently claims, annual maintenence costs, life expectancy, etc?
As a side note, my girl friend recently bought a new civic for 16K. We looked at used ones and people were asking 12K for a 6 year old civic with 100K+ km on it!!! Resale value is enough of a reason to buy one alone. But again, is there any justification for this perceived value?
Why are you comparing the Avalon and Impala? The Avalon is a big, upmarket sedan targeted at older Toyota buyers. It’s Toyota’s Buick. The Camry, unlike the Avalon, is more of a direct competitor to the Impala.
I’m not surprised Nissans sales fell, they don’t have any recently new passenger cars except for the Versa. The designs (particularly the Altima) have aged well, but they badly need a refresh across the board.
Nissans are boring? Is there anything more exciting than Murano and Infinity G35 on the market at the moment?
Actually, the impala and Avalon are the competition to each other. Both are “full size” cars, versus the Camry being smaller. The Impala is a big car, actually bigger than the Avalon which itself is in a different class than the Camry.
So, the comparison is valid. The Camry would be better compared to the Pontiac G6 or the Chevy Malibu. I tried out those as well, and that’s where I would place them. And in those cases, btw, the GM car was still considerably cheaper.
Having recently moved to the US from the UK I can say one thing – almost all the car designs here are dead boring and overly large.
Nissan’s best stuff in the UK is smaller cars like the Micra. Truely wondefrul car to drive.
Even Fords range in the UK is much more visually interesting than anything here.
As I said elsewhere, I only teach people how to Google once a day. The buyout of retiring employees — numbering in the tens of thousands — was only agreed upon in the last couple of weeks, saggie. Certainly not on the books, yet.
Loys of other selloffs are, though — like GM’s interest in Fuji’s battery division they could have used for genuine hybrids — and sold it to Toyota. My, my.
Paper profits is bringing GM stocks back from junk status. Still not profitable from sales — and if you can’t do that you’re in a dead end. There is a limit to what can be made from selling off your assets.
Nice to see something other than the usual egregious — I love this and therefore — argument, though.
Somewhere in GM’s labs is a prototype for an electric car that would save the company if GM had the balls to go against the Bush administration’s drive for Iraqi blood-soaked, 911-Pearl Harbored, obsolete oil.
Wow! This thread actually made it to comment 22 before the gratuitous Bush slam! Isn’t that a new record?
So much like the cattle I wish you would be. Mooo.
Good morning, Saggy. Still think you pulled out a plum with your thumb, eh?
Trouble is — even GM can’t respond to your babble. Although they’ve done enough accounting to admit the corporation as a whole is once again unprofitable for the quarter, they haven’t enough numbers to determine a NET profit for the car division. They do have an OPERATING profit for the quarter; but, that doesn’t mean squat to shareholders or most industry analysts. They still haven’t offered the totals for taxes and interest.
I’ll leave you to GOOGLE your knowledge of accounting up to speed, now.