In light of recent discussions regarding the domestic automakers loosing market share, I found this article interesting:
"Michael Johnson, PE" wrote in news:7vKdnSvMWq5MLE3ZnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:
If both Ford and GM don't get it together soon, our grandchildren will be saying "What's a Ford?" and "What's a Chevy?".
I see the day when the foreign auto makers will own Detroit. Chrysler was the first of the Big Three to be eaten. If you really want to shake your head then read this article:
Not long. Though Toyota is now experiencing some growing pains... recently they've had a rash of quality issues that are bitting them in the ass.
For Detroit, the key problem is a whole generation of buyers, who were raised on imports, are now entering their peak buying years. These kids' whole life they've come to know that Detroit means old technology and poor quality because their parents ranted/complained for years about the many crappy products Detroit was spewing out in the 70's,
80's and early 90s. Detroit isn't going to erase 30 years of memories in a few years or with a few good products. It's going to take them a longggg time to dig themselves out of the hole they've dug. Without any mergers, I see Detroit being whittled down to primarily just offering specialty products -- cars like the Mustang, SVT, Vette and SRT vehicles... performance/enthusiast stuff. Then it'll be a matter of keeping these core buyers and slowly rebuilding back up from there. Is this a bleak picture? Yep, but I truely believe that's what it's going to come to.Patrick
There is one component you left out. Detroit is now paying the price for ignoring the economy and mid size car market to push out one SUV/truck after the other. If you look at the second link I gave to Joe's response, Ford's car sales fell just 6.7%. The truck and SUV market is tanking. They have ignored their car lines and now when buyers are switching back from SUVs and trucks their first reaction is to buy Japanese. Ford and GM have no one but themselves to blame. They are so damn driven for short term profits they don't realize they are screwing themselves in the long run. The Japanese think long term and that is paying huge dividends for them. It will take a miracle for Ford and GM to stop the Toyota juggernaut.
Also, I don't see Ford or GM surviving on specialty vehicles. The sales volume on these cars/trucks isn't nearly enough to sustain even a mediocre sized automaker. My big prediction is that Ford is going to see their F series truck sales numbers erode to the Japanese. They have figured out what the American truck buyer wants like V-8's, size etc. and they are giving it to us in spades. If Ford looses much of its truck market share then I don't see how they will survive on their own.
They can turn it around but it will take some thinking that is way outside the box for Detroit. I still think they are in denial about what the Japanese are doing to them. I see GM just cranking out the same old boring shit year after year. IMO, Ford has some decent cars but their marketing effort absolutely sucks. Every time I see a "Bold Moves" commercial I feel like I am watching paint dry. The Mustang commercials do strike a chord with me but that is where it ends and that won't sell me a Ford 500. I do feel like Detroit is at a major cross roads regarding their future viability as players in the domestic auto market.
i have been with the company 13 years now. and there is a old guys that works out in the shop with me he`s been there around 25 years and he has always had a ford truck. well this past spring he came to work in a brand new full size toyota truck i was shocked!!! i asked him why the change now. he said as of right now that new truck has impressed him more than any other truck he had. when a die hard ford man buys a yoto makes you think something is very wrong!! he allways trades trucks every
4 years or so. he liked it better than the new f-150. are hard times coming i`m afraid??? :( mp"Michael Johnson, PE" wrote in news:vLSdnVDyhpOmokzZnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:
Bingo. Give the man a cigar!
"Michael Johnson, PE" wrote in news:IsudnZGa9_Gw00zZnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:
All true. Detroit needs to change its collective core mindset to come out of this. Ironically, DC may be the only one of the three that survives (or survives the longest), as they've already "morphed".
I think the world is poised on the edge of economics like we've never seen before.
As I said in the other post, the Japanese have figured out the full size truck market and they are making an all out assault on it. The trucks look good, have big V-8s, built tough, high built quality and provide a great driving experience. Will they figure out the muscle car market next? ;)
DC is really "D" owns "C". If that merger had not occurred I wouldn't be surprised if Chrysler was flirting with bankruptcy again. Their car line was aging fast and it looked like they didn't have the ability to develop a new one fast. The Mercedes chassis' and drive trains have been a big boost for their sales.
It is truly a global economy. The bright side is it should decrease wars between nations. After all, why would China destroy its largest buyer for its products. ;)
And what percentage of their sales is their truck/SUV markets? What...
50%? Now erase a percentage of those sales, and add a still eroding car market and what are you left with? My answer is not much. Sure, they'll continue to sell some trucks/SUV and cars, but I'm telling you their core, their very heart -- enthusiast products -- are either going to make or break them. These products, and the way they design them and build them, are either going to grow and the enthusiasm behind them spread to their other product lines or, without mergers, Detroit will eventually go under.You say miracle, I say passion. They will get smaller, much smaller, but the passion that drives Team Mustang and Corvette is the maker breaker. (Cadillac & Hummer have a foundation for success.) Either they build comparable teams for each of their product lines or it's game over.
Corvette and Mustang couldn't do it alone, but with the help of Cadillac, Hummer, Solstice-type offerings, GTO, Camaro, and Ford with SVT and hopefully a revitalized Focus, Lincoln and/or Mercury, plus some other car and trucks slaes I think they could. I mean there are other automaker makers out there right now surviving on fewer sales.
Bottomline: GM and Ford are going to, and going to have to, shrink, a lot.
With all the new players jumping into the truck market, it's inevitable Ford and GM's share will shrink. People like variety and choices, so some are natually going to sample and drift to other products. (Think Mustang sales in the 60s.)
I see GM doing much more than Ford. For truly exciting products, Ford has been reduced to just the Mustang. At least GM has the Vette, Hummers & Cadillacs (and I'd add the GTO). Plus, GM has some neat products in the pipline. I haven't seen or heard about anything neat that Ford has coming... that is besides new Mustang varieties. They seem to think rebadging their Lincolns with alpha characters is the way to go.
Every time I see a "Bold
I agree. It's time they start moving forward or they'll go down the tubes. I just hope they tap their Vette's and Mustang's passion to get the rest of thier products spinning in the right diection...
Patrick
Joe, DC hasn't fully "morphed". They are also back on the ropes. The evidence is despite a return to employee pricing for all, sales have continued to fall. Their "300 magic" seems to be wearing off...
Patrick
The point I was making is Ford has neglected their car side for too long and now when they need those sales to keep volume up they aren't there. Toyota, Honda, Nissan etc. never let their car line languish and become stale. If you took all of Ford's enthusiast cars/trucks I bet they wouldn't add up to 300,000 units. Take out the Mustang and there is hardly anything at all. Ford has abandoned their bread and butter models like the Taurus, Escort, etc. and, IMO, with it they have killed their identity with millions of potential buyers. Now they are trying to sell models that no one is familiar with and it is killing them. If they would bring out a Taurus they would probably sell 100,000+ of them just because of the name alone.
They can only get so small before they cease to be a viable automaker. I just don't see the majority of the public as closet enthusiast car buyers. You and I are not the norm. We are the rare exception. ;) The bulk of the public are meat and potatoes car buyers. For proof just look at Toyota's car line. It is bland as milk toast but that doesn't stop their mark to the top.
True but they were never as large as GM, Ford or Chrysler. I don't think they will shrink. They will get gobbled up by the winners.
An elephant can only loose so much weight before it dies and/or gets eaten. :)
Those new players really aren't that new. The Japanese have been pecking away at the full size truck market for a long time. They just recently have found the formula to really take a big bite out of Detroit. Full size trucks was the last segment that Detroit owned outright. In 5-10 years I bet the Japanese will own the personal truck segment like they have done with the compact truck market. I think construction related sales will remain a mostly domestic market.
I don't see either one getting anywhere with their car lines. Personally, I think Detroit's main problem is more marketing related than vehicle quality/content. The foreign auto makers are kicking their asses and taking names.
Every time I see a "Bold
They are definitely going to have to take some risks with future car models. Ford needs a "Taurus" type vehicle right now like they gave us in the late 80s. The Taurus was an all or nothing move by Ford that pulled them from the abyss.
snipped-for-privacy@aol.com wrote in news:1154573181.154355.232080 @s13g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
By "morphed" I mean "teamed up with" a foreign maker. It's in both Mercedes Benz' and Chrysler's interests to watch out for each other.
The "300 magic" isn't so much a factor as increased fuel costs along with outrageous labor and insurance costs. GM and Ford are suffering from the same maladies.
The thing that Chrysler has going for it now is that they have MB looking over their shoulder, whereas GM and Ford don't have such a strong foreign influence - yet. Time will tell.
"Michael Johnson, PE" wrote in news:nvednYOCKdTqx0zZnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:
Mustang,
rebuilding
Agreed. But it's deeper than that. DC is certainly more of a "global" company with an ever-increasing "global" outlook than GM or Ford.
Well, right now we're seeing first hand how thick-headed some of these nations are. And I'm certainly not discounting the U.S.
"Michael Johnson, PE" wrote in news:svOdna5W3O9ZzEzZnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:
The truck market is taking a huge nose dive. This is certainly not the time to get into trucks. Foreign makers should heed lessons already learned and focus on fuel-efficient vehicles. If not, they'll be right behind American makers with huge losses.
They don't need to. They have tuner cars, which are more popular. ;)
This is where the Japanese are their most deadly to Detroit, IMO. There may not be a truck market right now but they will continue pounding away at Ford and Chevy anyway. They have a solid car line that is doing well that lets them push their truck line. They aren't relying only on SUV/truck sales like GM and Ford have for the Last 15 years. This is a long term war in their eyes. Look at the tenacity they had in the car market. When they first came over here forty years ago NO ONE wanted their cars. Hell, fifteen years earlier we had just kicked their ass in WWII. To even come here at that time took a set of gonads so big they probably drug on the ground when they walked. They kept hammering away and now they are closing in on being #1. They were willing to fight Detroit for decades, if necessary. If GM and Ford had a fraction of the foresight the Japanese have they probably wouldn't be in the mess they find themselves.
Another great marketing coupe by the Japanese. What does the big three do... they throw out a decent car like the SVT Focus. Then they kill it off before it ever had a chance of gaining a foothold in its intended market segment. Ford did this with the SVT Contour, Cougar, Probe and the Taurus SHO among others. All good cars that they just walked away from. Sometimes I can't believe how dumb some of their decisions have been.
"Michael Johnson, PE" wrote in news:qaidnb3Qlth_LE_ZnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:
Can't agree more with your last statement. However, I think the Japanese in general missed the boat by a few years with their truck offerings. Had they come out a few years ago with the good stuff they've got now coupled with a good marketing push, who knows what inroads they'd have made into the American truck market?
At this point, I think it's a moot battle. The light-duty truck market that the Japanese are getting into now is taking a big hit in general. The Japanese still have yet to seriously compete in the American heavy- duty diesel market, which is smaller but more stable IMO.
Exactly. Take a look at some of the most successful cars out there - Civic, Camry, Altima, etc. What do American makers have? The Five Hundred or the Zephyr? The Cobalt? The Caliber? And now look at the most recent foreign entries - the Fit, the Yaris, the Versa. Light years ahead of the Americans. Cars like these, coupled with American makers' labor union/insurance balls and chains are the demise of the American auto industry.
This is the way the Japanese work though. They keep trying until the product is what the public wants. I think they will be in a very good position when the truck market improves. Plus it gives them more time to refine their product.
I agree. I think the commercial/construction truck market is still Detroit's.
The UAW and domestic car companies are whistling past the grave yard. As for Ford I think they have no effective marketing strategy and this is their biggest problem. The cars they sell are not inherently bad (or ugly) and, IMO, are fairly close to the Japanese makers in quality. There is very little model recognition with Ford. They have the Mustang, Explorer, F150 and nothing else comes to my mind. The rest of there model line has no history with the public. The Fusion is a great car but I suspect it will be killed off in a couple of years for something else.
Too bad for Ford. Unfortunatly they really have no competitive, mass appeal cars. Out side the Mustang, their product mix is not really competitive. Even the Fusion/Milan fall a bit short. I own a V6 Milan. Nice car no doubt, but it falls a little short in the hp/mpg category against a Maxima or Accord or Camary. Until last year when they introduced the 'stang, Ford had not put out an all new car (Focus) for 8 years. That's an eternity in car years!
I suspect that of the reaminng 2 US manufacturers, GM will survive because of it's size, Ford may not...
Michael Johns> In light of recent discussions regarding the domestic automakers loosing
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