Why GM Failed In India
CNBC:
Over the last 20 years, the
Indian automotive market has grown from
about 500,000 new passenger cars,
hatchbacks, sedans and utilities to
about 3.5
million in 2018.
The market has an expected compound annual
growth rate of about 5 to
6 percent over the next 10 years.
But, some automakers have struggled
to make it work.
Among them is General
Motors, the largest U.S.
car company. GM stopped selling cars in
India in 2017 after years of
declining market share.
It's a striking move for GM, which
in recent years has also closed
shop in other regions around the
world, as leadership focuses on
maximizing profits and making investments
in new technologies such as
electric power trains
and mobility services.
With a population of more than
1 billion people, India is becoming
one of the world's
largest automotive markets.
The country is poised to surpass
Japan as the world's third biggest
new car market in 2021.
So while there is ample
opportunity for automakers, the Indian
landscape has been particularly difficult
to navigate, especially for
American firms. GM watched its share
of the Indian market erode
steadily over several years, bottoming out
at about one percent in
2016 just before the
automaker pulled out.
So if the Indian market is
growing, why did GM struggle, especially
when GM has been
so successful in China?
To be fair, quite a few automakers
tend to have difficulty in the
Indian market. First of all, India
is a massive country with a
diverse population of roughly 1.3
billion people.
India, I think, we are
definitely a complex market.
The income levels
are quite heterogeneous.
We are divided, actually into
urban India and rural India.
The consumer requirements are actually
different even the needs are
different in both these markets.
There are a few criteria a
mass market automaker ought to meet.
They are fuel efficiency, resale
value, proximity of service stations
and the affordability of parts
and low servicing costs.
I think first thing is price.
We are a country with a
very low per capita income.
Indians are very price sensitive.
But price is not the only factor.
So now the customer also needs
some more value, for example, with
styling elements. And then, I think,
the consumer also wants a global
brand. They want a
brand which is aspirational.
The consumer wants an overall combination of
all P's, you know it may
be product, it may be
price, it may be positioning.
Which makes the things
quite complicated for OEMs.
These might seem pretty attainable,
but many automakers have
struggled to meet these
in the country.
There are a couple of companies who
have managed to crack that code
and there are several more with shares
of the market ranging in size
from small to smaller.
By far, the most successful automaker
in India is the Japanese firm
Suzuki, which alone owns
half the Indian market.
Suzuki has enjoyed something of
a first mover advantage.
It was the first major automaker to
enter India, and it did so
through a joint venture
with Indian manufacturer Maruti.
Suzuki also specializes in highly
fuel efficient vehicles, which are
extremely important in
the Indian market.
After Suzuki, Korean maker Hyundai is
the second largest with 16
percent of the Indian market.
After that, Indian, Japanese and Korean
makers such as Honda, Tata,
Kia and Mahindra all more or less
have equal degrees of market share.
Kia in particular, is a relatively
late coming brand that has been
able to succeed in India.
I think an excellent example is
Kia Motors which recently entered, it
was a new brand and
they gave a great proposition.
They were in an SUV segment and
I think suddenly right from the month
one, we saw a great success
for this OEM, in India.
Then the remaining 10 percent of the
market is made up of others such
as Ford, Renault, BMW and Nissan.
Early on, GM entered the India market
with its Opel brand, a mass
market brand GM had
owned in Europe.
While Opel cars tended to be
affordable, they failed to resonate with
Indian buyers.
I think later on they realized that's
not a brand which is really
going to work well in India because
that was not a value proposition
which they were offering
to their customers.
But then GM introduced its Chevrolet
brand to the country, which
brought it more success.
It was a great success.
They launched a few great
products like Chevrolet Cruze Chevrolet
Beat. They had that start which
they were really looking forward.
Despite these efforts, the automaker had
trouble taking share in the
Indian market. It was the first
automaker to introduce a diesel fuel
powered car of its size.
At the time, the Chevrolet beat
was the smallest diesel powered car
customers could buy in India.
It was a strong proposition and
benefited from a government subsidy
on diesel engines.
But in the end, the
diesel Beat had few takers.
The company may also have made a
misstep by trying to introduce a
low-cost vehicle GM manufactured with
its Chinese partner SAIC called
the Chevrolet Sail.
Their plan got derailed with the
introduction of Sail because I think
they underestimated the consumer aspiration
and then, I think, the
decline started. GM also fell victim
to a kind of self-reinforcing
cycle. One challenge it struggled with
was the lack of an adequate
dealer and servicing network.
More premium brands such as Mercedes
and BMW often attract customers
with the means to travel
further for service and sales.
But, mass market brands such as
GM's Chevrolet are targeting middle
class buyers who value convenience.
Dealerships in India often sell a
single brand so GM's low sales
volumes meant a single dealer might sell
only a handful of cars in a
month and risk taking losses on
the costs of running the business.
In the end, such low market share
made it difficult for GM to justify
maintaining a presence
in the country.
The automaker officially stopped selling
cars in India on December
31, 2017.
GM told CNBC it explored many
options for its India business, but
ultimately withdrew after it
determined the increased investment
originally planned for the country would
not deliver the returns of
other global opportunities.
It continues to operate services
for existing Chevrolet customers in
the country. In September, the
automaker entered a long-term
partnership with Tata Consultancy Services,
which will do engineering
design for GM vehicles meant
for markets around the world.
The move out of India was part
of a larger pullback GM has been
making around the world as
it restructures its business.
We're seeing other automakers follow
suit as they're pruning.
They're pruning the dead branches and
focusing on where they can be
strong. For GM, this is a huge shift
because GM of old used to be all
things to everyone everywhere.
And, it has now decided that
is not the proper strategy.
The automaker told CNBC if it doesn't
see a clear path to leadership
and long term sustained profits in
a particular market, it will look
at opportunities to focus its resources
on areas that will lead to
the greatest results. It added that this
is the same approach it has
taken elsewhere.
The automaker also sold its
European operations to French carmaker
PSA in 2017.
At the time it pulled out of India
GM had two factories there, one in
the Gujarati city of Halol
and another in Talegaon.
The Halol plant was acquired by
MG Motor, the once famed British
brand now owned by Chinese
automaker SAIC Motor Corporation.
GM has a joint venture with
SAIC to produce cars in China.
Reports surfaced in November 2019 that
SAIC is also in talks to
acquire GM's Talegaon plant, along
with fellow Chinese automaker
Great Wall. GM told CNBC it
is exploring strategic options for the
plant. The move out of India was
a retreat for GM and for American
auto industry. Ford is starting
to do the same.
It's trimming some
of its offerings.
Global economy and global auto
market is slowing some.
Certainly true here in the
US, it's true in China.
There's just not enough money to
go around to every single market,
too every single vehicle line.
Look at Daimler and BMW,
they've announced major employee cuts.
But in some ways it might
have been a shrewd move.
The other thing that is happening
in the market that has never
happened before is we are on the
verge of massive disruption of the
industry. You know, we're going to
have a future of electric
vehicles, autonomous vehicles and new
ways to acquire personal
transportation and now
mobility service.
There's all kinds of things.
Nobody knows when that's going to happen
or how it's going to happen,
but it's requiring a
lot of investment.
Companies like GM just can't keep putting
a ton of money into the
future as well as a ton
of money in today's stuff.
While analysts do expect the
Indian automotive market to continue
growing in the foreseeable future, it
did hit a slump in 2019.
Maruti Suzuki sales were growing
until February 2019, but have
slipped every month, year
over year, until October.
Suzuki said in November that the slowing
Indian market was one of the
factors behind the company's falling overall
sales and net income in
its second fiscal quarter.
So I think right now the
market is going through turmoil.
Our economy is struggling and if
we only talk about the automotive
market we are talking about a decline
of minus 14 percent in 2019
calendar year light vehicles.
So obviously this year is the
kind of degrowth happening, which has
not happened in last
two decades, in India.
2020, we are just talking about a
kind of a flat growth but then
going forward, in 2021, '22, '23,
the assumption that our economy
should be back, you know, the
GDP growth rate will start growing
above seven percent. Indian
automotive analysts note the country's
auto industry has to contend
with the relatively recent rise of
mobility services such as ride
hailing. The potential of these
competing technologies is still
unknown, but could affect how
interested in car ownership Indians
remain in the future.
In the end, GM did make some of
the right choices when trying to go
into India. GM was right in
terms of localizing their products
typically for the Indian market, making
it, in line with the taxation
because they were able to save tax.
But, at the end of their day, were
really not able to match with what
the competitors were offering.
If the Indian economy picks back up,
GM may find itself trying to
profitably re-enter the country.
GM's rival Ford, which has been in
India since 1995, said in October
2019 it will create a new
joint venture with Indian manufacturer
Mahindra, which Ford said will help
it develop new products faster
and drive profitable growth.
Why General Motors Left Europe
CNBC:
In 2017, General Motors,
the largest U.S.
automaker with brands known around the
world made perhaps one of
its boldest moves in its history.
It sold its European Opel and
Vauxhall brands to the French
automaker PSA known for brands
such as Peugeot and Citroen.
It was the end of an era
for GM which had first ventured into
Europe nearly 90 years before.
It also marked the end of nearly
two decades of losses for the
brands under GM's stewardship.
GM executives said the deal
would unload a difficult and
struggling business and allow the company
to focus on its more
profitable North American market and free
up cash to make needed
investments in new technologies such
as electric cars and
autonomous driving.
But the move came with risks.
The European new car market is about
as large as that of the
United States and leaving it would
not only hit GM's volume but
also increase its exposure to the
ups and downs of the U.S.
auto market.
The sale of the unit
also racked up huge costs.
GM took a $3.9 billion
loss in 2017 owing
mostly to the $6.2
billion in costs it had to
shell out for the sale.
So why did GM leave?
Did the automaker simply
screw up or fail?
Was it wise to get out of Europe?
And what does it mean for GM's
future and the future of the auto
industry?
The decision actually says a lot about
how difficult it is to be a
global automaker today and the
sometimes subtle ways markets
around the world increasingly favor
local players who can tailor
their products to
specific markets.
In the end GM may have failed
in Europe in part because it just
isn't European.
The numbers show General Motors was
having a rough time on the
continent in the nine years or
so before the divestiture of GM's
European business.
It bled money at the EBIT line
every single year for a total of
about $14 billion in
losses on $208.4
billion dollars in sales it's nine
year weighted loss of 6.9
percent.
EBIT stands for earnings before interest
and taxation and is the
metric GM uses to report
the money its international business
divisions make.
Its worst year during that time
was during the financial crisis in
2009.
Where GM incurred a 15
percent loss of $3.6
billion dollars.
The best year in that period was
2016 where it still had a 1.4
percent loss totaling
about $257 million.
Now that sounds like an improvement
and in absolute terms it was.
But consider that over the same
nine year period GM turned a
profit in North America of
$28 billion on $823.7
point billion in sales.
That's a nine year
weighted gain of 3.4
percent an automaker generally tries to
target an 8 percent EBIT
for any given region and for
the world as a whole.
GM's rival, Ford for example has an
8 percent EBIT target for its
European business.
The automobiles never really
sold well with consumers.
And one of the reasons they
weren't able to achieve profitability
is because what they did sell
were primarily passenger cars and
not the higher margin trucks and SUVs
that they saw a lot of in
the U.S..
So that's that's a
big part of it.
There's also a lot of headwinds that
they faced on the cost side
of the equation with with the
cost of labor, unions, and
also more stringent regulation
particularly from an emissions
standpoint.
So a lot of those reasons are
why they had such mixed results and
from a market share perspective when
they pulled out they were
they only had about 6
to 7 percent market share.
So it wasn't really a
dominant market for them.
And GM was losing ground
during that time to competitors.
Consider that the automaker
had a 9.3
percent share of the European car
market in 2008 but that fell
below 7 percent in 2014 and stayed
there for two years and then
fell again to around
6 percent in 2016.
Meanwhile European competitors seem
to be faring better.
And once GM sold off its
European business its earnings shot up.
The automaker earned a
global EBIT of 9.9
percent in 2017 and 8.4
percent in 2018.
But why was GM struggling in Europe
when it does so well in the
United States and is
even leading U.S.
automakers in China a market that is
by no means easy to do
business in.
One reason is that
Europe is pretty unique.
To be fair to GM it is not
the only automaker that has had trouble
there.
American cars have never been an
easy sell in the European market.
Ford for example has dialed back
its presence in the region.
Gm is not alone
in their struggles.
You see Ford pulling out of
Europe and American cars just never
have really sold very well there.
That market is really dominated
by the big three German
manufacturers and others.
But it's also a
fairly fragmented market.
So they just really were never
able to compete and consumers just
didn't really like their cars.
There were larger economic and political
factors such as the great
recession and tightening emissions
regulations that made it
tougher for companies to
do business there.
Another factor is the
distinctiveness of European tastes.
At the time GM CEO Mary Barra
said 80 percent of the vehicles in
the Opel portfolio didn't share
parts or platforms with those
sold in any of
GM's other markets.
When we look at the portfolio
going forward from a vehicle
perspective or a portfolio perspective
only 20 percent of the
portfolio overlapped with the rest
of the General Motors
portfolio.
So we think the real opportunity
for PSA is to leverage that
Europe specific scale.
That put the company
in a tough position.
Major automakers generally want to
build flexible platforms and
parts that can be used in
a variety of models in different
markets.
This helps them keep costs low
and achieve those highly desired
economies of scale.
There are forces however that make
it difficult to share parts and
platforms.
Automobiles tend to be highly regulated
products and many of the
markets where they are sold
and the regulations can vary
sometimes widely from
region to region.
One example of this is
fuel economy and emissions regulations.
Both the U.S.
and Europe have them.
But they tend to differ and
producing cars to meet each
regulatory regime costs
more money.
It requires that the company engineer
and test every vehicle to
fit every set of rules.
But many industry observers say GM
made a number of missteps over
the years that contributed to
the brand's struggles in Europe.
Opel and Vauxhall are often thought
of as sensible cars but they
do not have the glamorous
reputations of more premium brands.
GM typically sold Opels and Vauxhalls
in high volumes usually to
keep costs low.
But simple supply and demand shows this
has a way of driving down
prices.
And while GM produced a lot of cars
it was hard for it to make
money on the cars it made.
It also introduced its Chevrolet brand
into Europe which had the
effect of undermining sales
of Opel and Vauxhall.
Both brands already had
difficulty distinguishing themselves in
Europe's competitive landscape and
selling highly similar
Chevrolets right next to
them further confused buyers.
Furthermore the company didn't
have the right products.
Opels portfolio was heavily
weighted toward traditional passenger
cars such as
subcompact and sedans.
And the brand missed the boom
in crossover and small SUV sales.
At the end of the day Europe is
a large market but it is a mature
one and does not offer the
opportunities for growth companies can
find in China and other emerging
markets or even the kinds of
opportunity in the U.S..
A lot of it is really reflection
of the economic growth in Europe
relative to China.
You have one of the fastest growing
countries in the world and the
U.S. which is growing stronger a
lot stronger than Europe now.
You know if you look at European
GDP over the last several years
just has really lagged the
North American market in Asia.
China is now the world's largest
car market with 28 million new
vehicles sold in 2018.
That number is likely to continue
to rise as the auto market
continues to grow.
In North America particularly the
United States, is becoming an
ever more profitable market as
consumers turn toward higher
priced crossovers, SUVs,
and pickup trucks.
So GM cut the cord in Europe and
said it would use the money to
focus more on its strong business
selling trucks in North America
while sinking piles of cash
into its investments in electric
vehicles and self-driving cars.
Those aren't cheap aspirations and it may
be a long time before GM
or anyone else makes
money off them.
Meanwhile GM's North American sales
have grown pretty consistently
from 56 billion dollars in 2009
to 113 billion dollars in 2018
according to FactSet.
Meanwhile it was able to sell the
business to Peugeot and a large
automaker that has been successful
focusing on Europe but who
also has plans to
return to the U.S..
They've been very open over the
last few months about their
interest in specifically
Fiat Chrysler.
Which I think they view as a
opportunity to gain a foothold in the
North American market and obviously
you know that company has
said some very well-received brands with
Jeep and a lot of the
new products that
they're introducing.
In a comment to
CNBC, General Motors
said:
Peugeot surprised the industry by saying
it had restored the Opel
and Vauxhall brands to profitability in
part by cutting costs and
introducing new more
profitable models.
Ford's Fight To Remain An American Icon
CNBC:
Ford Motor Companyis the oldest U.S. automaker. More than one century old,
it is the only one to have survived the
Great Depression, two World Wars and the 2008 financial
crisis without having to sell to a foreign buyer or file for bankruptcy. After one hundred fifteen years,
Ford is now at a critical juncture in its storied history.
Global auto sales peaked in 2016.
The entire industry is struggling with higher interest rates more expensive material costs and a global trade war.
Then there's Uber, Waymo, Tesla and
other new startups and companies that are
upping the pressure on the industry
to keep up with the latest technology.
Autonomous driving, electric vehicles, hybrids, all of which will take billions of
dollars in investment and years to
develop before any real payoff comes.
The automaker's stock sank below 10
dollars a share in July 2018 for
the first time since emerging from
the financial crisis in late 2009.
Under former CEO Alan Mulally. Since his departure in 2014 Ford, has struggled with his successors.
Mark Fields who was an executive with Ford for nearly three decades held the top job for just three years before
the board replaced him with current CEO Jim Hackett, a company outsider in April 2017.
And Hackett is already under pressure sales in China have plummete.
Falling 45 percent in October 2018 over
the same quarter in the previous year.
Ford's European business has deteriorated and it has long struggled in Latin America.
Hackett's promised $11 billion turnaround plan hadn't fully materialized by late 2018.
Although, investors have become impatient, analysts say
Hackett still has the backing of Henry Ford's great grandson.
Ford was founded at the turn of the 20th century by Henry Ford, a mechanically inclined young man from a
farm outside Detroit, Michigan. Uninterested in farming, He worked as an engineer at the Edison Illuminating Company,
where Thomas Edison encouraged the young entrepreneur to experiment with automobile designs.
Ford ultimately teamed up with a Detroit coal dealer and founded the Ford Motor Company in 1903.
I think it's important to know that Ford was not afraid of failure in fact he embraced and welcomed failure.
He would talk about how his first two car companies failed.
He would have rather setbacks along the way but he saw each failure as a to lessen a chance to learn something
and do better with the next attempt. So I think that was important.
At that time, cars were assembled slowly by teams of skilled craftsmen. Ford saw the potential to streamline the process.
He adapted assembly line techniques learned from other industries, such as brewing and canning.
This dramatically sped up production and reduced costs.
Henry's Model T car was the first automobile produced on a mass scale would turn him into a legend.
Its initial price in 1908 of $825, under $23,000 in today's currency, gave it widespread appeal.
By 1916, Model T production rose to more than 585,000 units and the price fell to $360. During their lifetime,
Model Ts represented half of all the cars on the road worldwide.
In 1917, the company made its
first foray into producing the vehicles, it is perhaps best known for today,
the pickup truck.
The truck was based on the Model T
and was a sturdy frame with a cab in the front.
Ford sold roughly 4 million pickups
before stopping production during World War II.
In the postwar period, the company would release a number of now classic cars, including the legendary Thunderbird.
Ford rolled out the Mustang, a two door pony muscle car in 1964.
Steve McQueen would turn it into an icon in the 1968 film, Bullet.
By the early 1980s though, Ford had suffered a number of bad years
and executives at the company began
looking for challenging and inspiring new designs.
The company rocked the automotive world in 1985 when it released the Taurus, a front wheel drive sedan with
rounded edges, that was strikingly different from what sedans looked like at the time.
The car is often credited with saving the company and its so-called Jelly Bean shape influenced auto designs for more than a decade.
But Ford would later face other challenges.
Reports started surfacing in the late 1990s of accidents involving the tires on Ford Explorer sport utility vehicles.
The scandal resulted in more than 270 deaths and 800 injuries in the United States alone prompted congressional investigations.
Millions of dollars in settlements and legal costs forced several executives to resign and severely damaged Ford's reputation.
Just as Ford was putting the scandal behind it,
Cracks started showing in the auto lending market in late 2005 and early 2006, foreshadowing the crisis to come.
Ford which made $1.6 billion in 2005 lost an astounding $12.6 billion the next year.
At the height of the financial crisis in 2008, it booked a record loss of $14.7 billion.
The big three Detroit automakers: Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler would go to Washington hat in hand for a combined $34 billion in loans that December.
But Ford was spared the fates of its rivals. Then CEO Mulally, who had been hired from Boeing in 2006,
was credited with having the foresight to see the credit markets tightening.
He amassed a $20 billion war chest
through borrowing before the crisis was in full swing.
The gamble paid off.
Ford was the only Detroit automaker that didn't take federal assistance or file for bankruptcy and has booked annual profits ever since.
But since Malawi's departure in 2014, the company has seen its fortunes sink.
Some industry watchers say Mulally, like other auto executives, missteps
by realigning Ford's portfolio around passenger sedans and compact cars,
missing the dramatic consumer shift toward SUV and pickups.
Hackett has inherited a challenge.
With U.S. auto sales down from their 2016 peak of 17.5 million vehicles sold,
the industry has been increasingly relying on high priced trucks and SUV fees to bolster profits.
The company has to slim down its operation, remain profitable, invest in new products for
the short term, and still show it is looking further ahead into the future.
And it has to do this while fending off competition from not only traditional automakers but a whole new ecosystem of companies,
from industries such as technology.
Some of which have very deep pockets.
They are in this transitional challenging place right now and and taking a lot of criticism.
But let us not forget it is not a company that's on the verge of bankruptcy.
They are still very profitable.
They have a lot of cash. So, it's not a company that's going away tomorrow as Ramos said it wouldn't.
Ford wouldn't make it through the next recession. That couldn't be further from the truth.
Of course Ford certainly has its strengths.
It has a strong brand, loyal customers and good products among other things.
But the auto industry could look very different in just a few years.
Investors aren't yet convinced Hackett can navigate through these choppy waters.
Whether Ford will see another century as an American icon remains to be seen.
General Motors says it remains committed to Chevy Cruze
WKBN27:
Car sales, including GM's Chevy Cruze, down in 2017
WKBN27:
Why Ford And Other American Cars Don’t Sell In Japan
CNBC:
When it comes to cars, Americans
seem to love the Japanese.
But the Japanese don't seem
to love Americans back.
Japanese brands sell remarkably well
in the United States.
Several of the best-selling automakers in
America are from Japan, and
their products seem to dominate entire
segments in sales and critical
acclaim. Japanese automakers sell so
many cars in the U.S.
that they actually employ vast numbers
of American workers in factories
around the country.
Japanese automakers actually build a third of
all the vehicles made in the
U.S. But the Japanese don't seem
to be interested in America's SUVs,
pickup trucks, muscle cars or just
about any vehicle made by Detroit.
Ford left Japan entirely in 2017.
General Motors keeps a presence there, but
it is tiny — the largest U.S.
automaker sold only 700 cars
in Japan in 2018.
And people are divided as to why
and what, if anything, should be done
about it.
President Donald Trump has criticized the
imbalance, but so have U.S.
automotive trade associations, who
blame Japanese protectionism.
While there are no
Japanese tariffs on U.S.
imports, a number of critics say there
are all kinds of technical barriers
that make it harder for U.S.
companies to sell in Japan.
Here in the United States, when we
set regulations for fuel economy or
safety or communications standards or whatever,
all of the automakers that
sell and produce in the United
States are party to that conversation.
In Japan, it's a much more
closed process for regulatory compliance.
It's "these are the rules and
you will meet the rules."
Japanese producers have input into that
and suppliers, but it's pretty
closed to any external companies that
would be doing business there.
But some industry experts say
that really isn't the problem.
Instead, the reasons U.S.
cars are so rare in Japan, which
is the world's third-largest car market,
have more to do with Japanese
consumer tastes, the abiding if outdated
stereotypes the Japanese have about the
quality of American cars, and the
very different way customers shop
for vehicles in Japan.
It is first important to note
that Japanese brands all but completely
dominate local roads.
More than 95 percent of all cars
sold in the country are Japanese.
Imports make up the balance and
most of those are higher-end European
luxury vehicles and sports cars.
This is partly because the
Japanese have pretty specific needs.
For one thing, space
is incredibly tight.
Wildly popular in Japan are these
so-called Kei cars, which are tiny
vehicles preferred by drivers who have
to thread their way through narrow
streets and crowded cities.
Kei Cars alone make up
40 percent of the Japanese
market and U.S.
automakers don't make them.
Americans, on the other hand, tend
to excel in making big vehicles,
particularly pickup trucks and
large sport utilities.
In recent years, American automakers have
scaled back or even entirely
killed off their own lines of
compact vehicles, which are often still
bigger than their
Japanese counterparts.
In fact, many of the Japanese vehicles
sold in America — from sedans such
as the Toyota Camry all the way up
to the pickups — are not even
particularly popular in Japan.
All three Detroit automakers have less
than 1 percent market share.
One of the bestsellers, Jeep, sells about
10,000 vehicles in Japan a year.
The Japanese car buying experience would
also likely shock many Americans,
who often view a trip to the
dealership as one of life's necessary evils.
Much of Japanese business culture is
built around service and hospitality,
and auto dealerships
are no exception.
Japanese dealerships offer customers nearly
white glove service, and the
way buyers choose cars is entirely
different from the traditional buying
experience in the U.S.
Whereas American shoppers will often choose
a car from what is available
on a dealer lot, Japanese buyers can
often custom-build a car out of a
catalog and then have it made for
them in a matter of weeks.
A strong local supply chain and
local factories allow Japanese automakers
to do this.
Furthermore, quality of service
is often quite high.
Dealerships frequently have amenities such
as cafes and complimentary car
washes. They will also follow up
with customers sometimes even years after
a purchase.
Foreign automakers overall have had difficulty
adapting to this way of
selling. Moreover, the Japanese have
longstanding perceptions of American
cars as inefficient and unreliable.
This somewhat outdated view originates in
the decades from the 1960s
through the 1980s, when Japanese
brands were ascending and American
automakers were plagued with criticism and
scandal over vehicles such as
the Chevrolet Vega, the AMC Gremlin,
the Ford Pinto and the Chevrolet
Corvair.
And though American manufacturers have
made far more fuel-efficient engines
in recent years, the U.S.
has historically made some gas guzzlers
when compared with cars made
elsewhere.
Yeah, I think there is
a hangover for American vehicles.
You know, what does an American
car say about you in Japan.
That baggage is carried with that.
Meanwhile, the Japanese rose to power in
the auto industry in large part on
their reputation for building solid, efficient
cars that don't break down.
Of course, many observers note that American
autos have done a lot to
close the reliability gap over the years,
and cars overall are able to log
far more miles on the road than
they did even a decade ago.
And U.S.
automakers are adamant that they would be
better able to compete in Japan
if the country removes barriers
that make doing business difficult.
The trouble for Detroit is that Japan
is just one of the international
markets where U.S.
automakers have struggled.
All three Detroit automakers have had
challenges in South America and
Europe. While China which is the world's
largest car market could become a
tougher place to do business
with slowing economic growth, increased
competition, and trade disputes.
If something doesn't change, U.S.
automakers could become just that: American
companies that sell trucks and
SUVs to Americans.
Here's Why People Buy Used Police Cars, Ford Crown Vic
Scotty Kilmer:
welcome to wacky Wednesday's, where
everyone has a chance to show off their
car mods, and here's this week's winner,
howdy folks this is my P 71 ford crown vic
this used to be a police car, drive this
thing everyday about 70 miles a day,
originally belong to my grandpa after
they bought it from the police auction, when
I got it the paint was flaking off had
old steel wheels, the car did not look this
good at all, I went down to my local
Walmart and bought about 15 cans of
paint and during Spring Break about few
and a half ago, I painted this thing,
she's all spray paint on this car on top
I couldn't reach it too good because I'm
kind of short, I had a guy locally
put me a giant American flag and in
the middle we done in red blue and
green in honor og those who keep our
country safe, the other thing I've done is
in the front g-max tires in
the back 18 by 9 gernal gmax tire
these pretty meaty looking, one part you always need,
performance makes it really good control
arms helps keep the car from spinning
and wheel hop, wheel hop is horrible
in the factory control arms, I'll show you the inside, that sticker there is from the unit number
on this door panel
you can see I got a little bit of latex paint on there don't mind, that but the
police model and on all crown vic I
assume have the seat can close up here
on the door panel, because if I'm sitting
down in this seat and I'm wearing full body
armor, big gun, so it's gonna be hard to
reach down there to adjust the seat, so
they put them right here, just like a
Mercedes, this one also has power door
locks, power windows, power mirrors, on inside aftermarket console as
the police models did not have a center
console because this area would have
been police center console, so these civilian
ones have like a bench seat into the
drivers seat you see the dash, that's
relatively simple but tell you
everything you need,
fuel, speed, and one thing to
note is it goes to 140 unlike a civilian
car which only goes to 120 and
these lights are on because the car is
on but the engine is
not running, over here is one of
the biggest things I've changed the radio
I've had it for like almost two years,
works it's great, you can go to Spotify
and Google Chrome, YouTube, if you want to you can play Angry Birds on it, everything you
can do with a tablet, coming back over here you and
see that it is column shift automatic
you do have the option to manually shift
down to all 4 gears and the transmission
has been rebuilt with her 650 horsepower
to match the wheel build kit and torque
converter, one thing I love about this
car is everything is so easy to use
so easy to find, it's all just hard
plastic though only, things that's kind of soft
touch this right here, it has a little bit of a
soft touch to it, moving back over here and
see that nice sweeping launch even
though this interior is kind of basic I think it has a
decent design
to it, tons of leg room, right here we
have the AC, are again easy to
use got fan speed, temperature, and where you
want it, no fancy gizmos one thing you will
notice is right here it says release trunk, so
the civilian crown vics would have had
a little clock right there at told you
the time and all that, these there again
being centered around the police officer
you have the trunk button right there, so
the advantage of that is so if there
is a police officer sitting here, he can
reach the button and pop open the trunk
which we'll go and look at, one other thing I will you talk
about this vehicle, now this trunk is massive, as you can see in here, there's my book
bag that I used for college, full-size
spare tire, bike rack, toolkit air
compression, over here we got the jack, right here is a 1000 watt power inverter
got two coil vent pioneer subs, one
thing you will notice is there is a fuel
pump shutoff switch, in case of a fire
you just hit that button and it puts off
the fuel, I said this car originally belonged to my grandpa so one of the
things I kind of do is I kind of, he
always wanted to do stuff to it but he
didn't have the time, so there he is
there, I kind of just keeping him there
just remind me, I like to think of him
now and then, then on the other end of it we
have back, you got the back seat
so this one we went through and we put power
windows back here, power door locks,
new back seat and it's really nice you
can see it this is really comfy, like a
couch back here, one other thing you can
see back here, is there's the headliner and
right here you see where it was cut for
cage, one other thing on the headliner
would be this thing right here this is what they
call the ticket light, it's bright as all
get-out you can actually buy at Home
Depot, but it's standard with equipment on
all police cars, go down here and pop
open the hood, so right here on this box is
what they call the cop
chip, P71's only I'm just
kidding nothing's in that box, but what
you will have in this very civilian
model is a different tune a big air box
this is the same air box found on the
Mercury Marauder, which is totally
different animal, you got a battery
the size of a small Honda motor, this
thing is genuinely massive, cost about
$300 so other than that you've got a 4.6
liter two valve v8 these can get around 270
horsepower more or less depends on who
you ask but you got modern features
without modern hassle, so everything is real
easy to work on,
alternators right there, belts real
easy to get to, one thing I like about this one being
a 2004, she'll have mechanical cable, one other thing about is they have upgraded brakes which I did have
paint red,
so we're going back to the back
underneath the car a little bit,
underneath the car you can see the 2
Cherry Bomb glass packs, feeding into an
offload x-pipe
and you can't see them but I have
flowmaster high flow catalytic
converters and all flows back 3 inch tubing to these four inch by 22,,so
that's my P 71 Ford Crown Vic, you want
to know more about the car you can
follow it on Instagram loud vic 281 or
you can find my youtube channel at
bigjackman20
so I hope you enjoyed this video,
god bless, well that was this week's video
and to have your car mod shown on my
channel here, check this out, so if you
never want to miss another one of my new
car repair videos, remember to ring that
Bell!
General Motors sells Lordstown plant
Click On Detroit | Local 4 | WDIV:
GM profit in US jumps on truck, SUV sales
Fox Business:
Chevrolet to Nepal
Douglas:
Do you remember?
all these memories, smiles and laughes..
But after the natural disaster.
Earthquake happened in Nepal, it caused many losts and damages.
Are you ready to support and return these beautiful memories to Nepal people again.
Today we want to invite everyone.
An opportunity to be a part of our supportive donation.
through the utilization of Chevrolet Colorado.
Which every 3% of 1 sold chevrolet colorado will be donating for assisting all victims in Nepal.
Chevrolet Colorado -THE POWER TO DO MORE
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