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'The Supremacy of Japanese Cars Has Been 40-Plus Years In the Making' (bloomberg.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the changing-taste-buds dept.

American business journalist Joe Nocera writes in a Bloomberg article about "how badly things have deteriorated for the U.S. car makers," after the recent news that both General Motors and Ford will soon be exiting the sedan market in the country. Slashdot reader gollum123 shares the report: Much of the analysis about Ford and GM's exit from the sedan market stressed that sedan sales have lost ground in recent years "as consumers have gravitated toward pickup trucks and sport-utility vehicles," as the New York Times put it. If you look at the historical sales figures of the top Japanese sedans, you'll see a small decline in recent years, but nothing like the big drop-off in sales that have hammered the American companies. So in addition to the overall decline in sedan sales, there is a second, largely overlooked, dynamic taking place: Americans have only stopped buying American sedans, not Japanese sedans. The American car companies now say they are going to count on profits from trucks and SUVs while moving toward autonomous and all-electric vehicles. They had better hope that transition takes place quickly.

I couldn't help noticing that while the top three selling vehicles in the U.S. are, indeed, American-made trucks, No. 4 on the list is Nissan's top SUV, the Rogue, the sales of which have gone from 18,000 in 2007 to 403,000 last year. No. 5 is a Toyota SUV, the Rav4 (407,000 in 2017). No. 6 is the Honda CR-V (378,000). And the leading American SUV? It's the Chevy Equinox. Last year, Chevrolet sold 290,000 of them -- 100,000 fewer than the Toyota Camry.

9 of 293 comments (clear)

  1. Re:duh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    A Tesla Model S has already gone over 400,000 miles.

  2. Business opportunity... by jcr · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Once the US automakers have all gone belly-up, someone should buy the rights to their body designs at the bankruptcy auction, and sell vehicles with modern drive trains that look like the classic American designs.

    I'd buy a carbon-fiber version of a 1970 fastback Mustang in a heartbeat. I'm sure plenty of people would go for a '57 Chevy or a '69 Corvette stingray, too.

    -jcr

    --
    The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
    1. Re:Business opportunity... by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Interesting

      No, the designs are outdated. Front bumpers have to be below knee level, encase of pedestrian collision. Also 1 in 8, on the road, will be involved in an accident this year.

      Good work, AC. This is the reason this can't happen. You can have kit cars based on outdated designs and as long as you do some token amount of the assembly work you can register it as a custom vehicle under federal regs. It has to pass emissions testing wherever you register it, but it tests as the donor vehicle so if you put an old motor in it and top it off with your choice of modern fuel injection system you can have no emissions system whatsoever beyond the O2 sensor. But a car sold in volume has to pass all kinds of modern regulations about bumper height, rear deck height, hood crumple area, side rear view mirror breakaway and the like which didn't exist back when those cars were born. The modern shapes of vehicles like the Mustang and Camaro are best-effort attempts to recreate the old body styles while conforming to modern safety (and efficiency) regulations.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  3. Re:duh by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Hondas are good, just avoid the Renaults sold as Japanese cars (Nissans). They're just as bad as the Fiats sold as Chryslers.

    My leaf SL is a fine car.
    The 350Z that preceded it was a fine car

    Bad ones I've had - Plymouth breeze: Just crap. Ford F350: a Dinosaur with a flaky FICM. Ford Ranger: At no point did everything work at the same time.
     

    --
    I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
  4. the 70's and beyond were horrible for american by bobstreo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    cars.

    Rust was the worst issue, but when Japanese and Korean cars started flooding the market for less money and lasting about 30-50% better (in terms of mileage and gas economy)
    it seemed to be a wake-up call for US car makers. This was hubris on the part of Ford, Chevrolet, Chrysler... They had their cheaply manufactured, planned obsolescence system and they were going to stick with it.

    I'm guessing at this point, more US vehicles are produced in Canada and places like the Toyota factory in South Carolina build more vehicles than Detroit.

    New technology (self driving cars, electric cars...) eventually mean that people don't need to buy a vehicle unless it's for work. Need a ride someplace, just order a car...

    1. Re:the 70's and beyond were horrible for american by reboot246 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Yes, and it proves that American workers can make good cars for a reasonable price, but they're generally not union workers.

      That's the story behind Detroit's problems that nobody wants to admit -- union workers making tons of money, union workers hard to fire for substandard work, and a shitload of substandard work.

      Want to buy a good American-made car? Come to Alabama; we make thousands of them. And before somebody says something about the workers making low wages here, they need to talk to those happy workers.

    2. Re: the 70's and beyond were horrible for american by phantomfive · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I'd be willing to bet in a decade or so, Ford will start making small cars again......At a nonunion plant in Alabama.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    3. Re:the 70's and beyond were horrible for american by aolsheepdog · · Score: 4, Interesting

      A great interesting story. You are looking for This American Life #403 - https://www.thisamericanlife.o...

      It is well worth a listen. We drover a Chevy Nova (later Geo Prism) built at the Nummi plant and it was outstanding. Actually ruined us since we knew it was really a Toyota. I've never bought anything but Japanese since.

  5. Re:Japan still HAS car companies. by Comrade+Ogilvy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The caveat: "You must finance with GM financial". Of course, at their rates which are well above what the local credit unions charge, and no doubt plenty of the uneducated crowd who buy their trucks will be suckered to sign to a long term (yes, 84 month now!) loan ensures they make most of that back.

    The leases are where they make a killing. Now over a quarter of new vehicles are lease.

    That is financial insanity. Yeah, there are a few people who own their business and it makes some kind of legit tax sense to lease the vehicle, but that cannot be more than 5% of the populace.