Sign of intelligent life in Detroit?
Here’s how you start building your franchise back.
It helps to be coming out with and advertising a hybrid competitor to Prius at the same time, too. Note in the article that Toyota, however, joined with GM and Chrysler earlier to oppose a bill with the same mileage standards and timelines. If you asked ordinary Americans whether “American cars” or “Japanese cars” “get better gas mileage,” I’m betting a survey would break out about 70-5-25 for, respectively, Japanese, American and “no difference.” Yet it’s really not true anymore when you do apples-to-apples comparisons: cars with the same size, weight (which roughly equates to safety) and power. The Japanese-based manufacturers have their gas-guzzlers, too, including giant SUVs that they promote like crazy just as much as any American manufacturer. It’s been my impression, too, that in the 6-cylinder world, some American cars have gotten better mileage for the weight than their Japanese counterparts.
Be that as it may, the American manufacturers long ago ceded this narrative to the Japanese with barely a whimper – as they did on their supposed disadvantage on quality, which has always been based on data collected with a shaky premise, certainly has mostly been a thing of the past for a long time, and probably never really existed except in the early years of Japanese market entry in the U.S. small car market. The ad agencies for Japanese manufacturers, meanwhile, have been very shrewd at reinforcing the reliability and better mileage messages for Japanese companies, and any Japanese company simply by reason of being Japanese, without actually making claims that could not be substantiated. As with most simple narratives, the press has just taken the path of least resistance – getting virtually none from the people who ought to care the most, the American manufacturers – and adopted the narrative lock, stock and barrel.
The result has been continuous market share erosion. Hostility to gas consumption standards, an obvious societal need, may have been tactically victorious, but it was hardly the way to win the hearts and minds of the many people who care about such things, especially a more liberal younger generation. In other words, they may have been winning the battles in Congress, but in the very process of doing that have been losing the war.
In a sensible world, there should be a few thriving auto manufacturers on each of the continents – with roughly equal export and import exchanges with the other continents. Maybe moves like Ford’s not mindlessly fighting against environmental standards is a start in the right direction for the declining North American manufacturers.
“CEO: Ford Can Handle Tougher Fuel Rules”
Executive Chairman Bill Ford said Monday it will be a stretch to meet the 35 mpg standard, but he is confident Ford can do it. ''We have to do it, and we have the best people in the industry getting ready to do it,'' he said.
It helps to be coming out with and advertising a hybrid competitor to Prius at the same time, too. Note in the article that Toyota, however, joined with GM and Chrysler earlier to oppose a bill with the same mileage standards and timelines. If you asked ordinary Americans whether “American cars” or “Japanese cars” “get better gas mileage,” I’m betting a survey would break out about 70-5-25 for, respectively, Japanese, American and “no difference.” Yet it’s really not true anymore when you do apples-to-apples comparisons: cars with the same size, weight (which roughly equates to safety) and power. The Japanese-based manufacturers have their gas-guzzlers, too, including giant SUVs that they promote like crazy just as much as any American manufacturer. It’s been my impression, too, that in the 6-cylinder world, some American cars have gotten better mileage for the weight than their Japanese counterparts.
Be that as it may, the American manufacturers long ago ceded this narrative to the Japanese with barely a whimper – as they did on their supposed disadvantage on quality, which has always been based on data collected with a shaky premise, certainly has mostly been a thing of the past for a long time, and probably never really existed except in the early years of Japanese market entry in the U.S. small car market. The ad agencies for Japanese manufacturers, meanwhile, have been very shrewd at reinforcing the reliability and better mileage messages for Japanese companies, and any Japanese company simply by reason of being Japanese, without actually making claims that could not be substantiated. As with most simple narratives, the press has just taken the path of least resistance – getting virtually none from the people who ought to care the most, the American manufacturers – and adopted the narrative lock, stock and barrel.
The result has been continuous market share erosion. Hostility to gas consumption standards, an obvious societal need, may have been tactically victorious, but it was hardly the way to win the hearts and minds of the many people who care about such things, especially a more liberal younger generation. In other words, they may have been winning the battles in Congress, but in the very process of doing that have been losing the war.
In a sensible world, there should be a few thriving auto manufacturers on each of the continents – with roughly equal export and import exchanges with the other continents. Maybe moves like Ford’s not mindlessly fighting against environmental standards is a start in the right direction for the declining North American manufacturers.
posted by KISSWeb | 6:13 PM
1 Comments:
This timely post conjures up my position on US automobile producer policy: consolidate the Big 3 into one Microsoft-like jaggernaut. While like Kissweb, I welcome Ford's stretch towards sustainability, the kind of R&D, scale economies and financial resources necessary to compete against Japanese and soon to be Chinese automakers exceed the capability of any of the once Big 3.
Post a Comment
<< Home