By Detroit I mean the automakers in Detroit (preferably only GM and maybe Chrysler). My plan is not the obvious make big SUVs but make them hybrid, my plan is to go after the Japanese car market share. Look, they can make land boats all day, but with gas prices this high they will be harder to sell. American luxury cars are either what rappers or grandmas drive. Accords and Camry’s are nice well built cars that sell in price range most people can afford and on their second owner still look good. If you can’t afford midrange then there is a step down with the Civics, etc, which are still nice, well made cars. Some of the luxury is gone but the quality remains. I have seen the Ford Fusion and it is no Accord. Detroit has no car that can compete with those cars, and the brands are all very pigeonholed. If Buick started selling Lexus LS, they would still be thought of as old people cars. It is time for Detroit to break the mold! They can’t just try to make over Cadillac’s imagine, they need new brands!
GM needs to lock the Caddy and the Pontiac people in a room with a couple Japanese car owners (for a reality check) and not let them leave till they have a new brand and a product line that represents practical luxury. Think of it Infiniti and Lexus aren’t that old, but they are leaders. Neither Cadillac’s banal, sofa like luxury nor Pontiac’s angry young man is enough. They need a car with a enough road feel to keep the driver interested, but not so much it hurts, enough power to hold its own but not so much it is hard to drive in traffic or wastes gas. It should be gender neutral to a bit manly, it should be a car a guy’s wife/girlfriend wants to borrow, but might not buy for herself. It should have a real backseat, but look stupid with a baby on board sticker. I think the brand needs to be modeled after Acura (or Honda) and make ~5 models: an economy coupe (rice rocket), a nice sedan, a luxury sedan, a sports car, and an SUV. The sports car and the luxury sedan need to be where new features are demonstrated, with the assumption that next the nice sedan will have it as an option and in two to three years it will be standard in the nice and an option in the economy coupe. There should be nice packages to customize your car. Not like the Scion, more like Acura has the TL but for the sports car people they use to have the TL Type S.
The customer should not have to leave the dealership to look at the company’s entire model line like they do with all the American car companies that make sub-brands that compete with themselves. Japanese car companies build loyalty since your first new car is their econ, then you move up to the sedan, then the SUV, then the sports car, then the luxury and then you die. Detroit doesn’t do that, you can’t really move in brand as well. You can stay with Chrysler, GM and Ford but there is no luxury Taurus.
Here is the big thing. American car companies need to innovate, they can’t wait for the government to make them innovate. If they can build a more fuel efficient engine then they need too, and they need to say we did it because our customers wanted it, not because the EPA said so. Detroit can’t keep building the same cars and have the same mentality. It didn’t work the last time gas prices spiked, they refused to change and so Japanese car makers got a foothold in America. This time they are competing against crappy Datsuns they are going against equals. If they don’t adapt or at least prove flexible then it will soon be GM a division of Honda Motor Company. Actually that would never happen the American car companies have too much debit to be worth buying.
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