With the ever increasing costs of owning and operating a vehicle, price, insurance, taxes, maintenance, depreciation and obsolesence, people are choosing the more utilitarian product.
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Headroom was acceptable. While I’m a bit taller than average, I have a long torso and short legs.
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First Ford, now Buick. That sucks. But honestly, do they have any compelling cars in the current lineup? I think not. IMHO, GM should have axed Buick and kept Pontiac instead. Pontiac had a much stronger lineup in terms of variety and sales.
Anyway, it’s sad to see SUVs pushing coupes and sedans out of the market.
Well seems to me they are trying to force the market in one direction whether that’s the way the general public wants to go or not. Usually this is a fool’s errand and leaves yourself open to the competition to fill the void-just like in the 80’s, but Mary is too young to remember.
I’d say the “general public” has already spoken about where they want to go. Have yet to see any sales figures that do not show car sales declining while suv and crossover sales increasing. This trend has been going on for some time now. They are responding to public demands. If you had complained about them not having foresight to envision cars making a comeback, that might be different story…
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Chicken or egg discussions never end with any resolution.
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FOMO coupled with cheap, long term financing keeps the automobile manufacturers blasting ahead pumping out their most profitable models. And eliminating the more practical models is certainly a great way to enhance the sales of those most profitable models.
Is that’s what’s happening, or is foreign competition pushing Ford and GM out of the car market the same way they they pushed Ford and GM out of the minivan market?
Civics and Priuses seem to be selling well in my area.
I think the market is telling them their biggest profits can be made in the SUV market, rather than selling cars with which they make much smaller profit margins.
+1
Yes, SUVs and crossovers do seem to outnumber sedans on the roads nowadays, but sedans of certain makes are still around in fairly significant numbers. In addition to Civics and Priuses, I still see a lot of late-model Corollas and Camrys. Rather than SUVs “pushing” coupes & sedans out of the marketplace, I think that this represents a choice that is being made by consumers, who are choosing foreign sedans rather than domestic sedans.
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That’s true but it doesn’t apply here. Cars are still widely available but not selling as well as other types of vehicles. Just how do you explain how SUVs are being forced on buyers that want to buy cars?
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Any business that continued to waste resources producing less profitable products when they haven’t saturated the market with more profitable products they can produce would be considered one of the most poorly managed companies around by most every standard.
Gee, we could make 2x more money making these widgets but then we would be putting all of our resources into that area and not be able to make these other things that don’t sell as well and produce less profit…yeah, that makes sense…
Whitey,
I suppose you could try to make a case for that based on the fact that all of the major import brands still offer cars. But, since the Honda Accord, Toyota Camry and Nissan Altima are made in America, I think it’s a dubious argument.
Especially when you consider the fact that Accords are made mostly from a domestically-sourced parts.
Buick’s real weakness is it’s cookie-cutter rebadged Opel product line.
…and why shouldn’t they?
If I was in the market for a big honking sedan, I’d try to get my hands on a new Ford police cruiser, but I’ve looked at all the small efficient four-cylinder hatchbacks, coupes, and small sedans out there, and the Ford and GM models just can’t compete. With Ford and GM’s small cars, you get all the disadvantages (in size) with none of the benefits (in high fuel economy).
I know we have several members who are happy with Ford’s and GM’s midsize and large sedans, but can any of them say they’re happy with one of Ford or GM’s compact cars? Those compact cars are the models where you capture brand loyalty when people buy their first cars.
You’re preaching to the choir on that one. I’ve been making that same case for a long time. I only refer to them as “foreign” in the traditional sense, based on where their headquarters are located.
That was a good movie.
Making and selling less profitable profits is done by extremely profitable companies all the time. There are many reasons to make these products. High profit is only one motivation. Long term viability is another. Wide selection of products is another. If High profit was the only motivator, then Nabisco (or what ever the corporate company is today) should ONLY make Oreo cookies. Every other product they make pales to the Oreo.
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That’s certainly true. One good strategy would be to make high quality, low cost economy cars in order to build brand loyalty, so people will buy more profitable versions of a company’s vehicles as their families grow or their needs change. The problem is that Ford and GM didn’t execute that strategy very well, and people have been so dissatisfied with their Ford Fiestas, Ford Escorts, and Chevy Aveos over the years that selling these cars turned people away from other vehicles in their lineups.
It works kind of like the motorcycle industry. None of the major motorcycle manufacturers make money selling small 250 CC bikes, but studies show that a lot of people who take the Motorcycle Safety Foundation’s Basic Rider’s Course buy the brand of bike they rode in class. If motorcycle manufacturers stopped making the 250 CC bikes they use in those classes, they’d lose out on a lot of business for larger displacement bikes.
I try not to make predictions, but I predict in this case, getting out of the car market is going to hurt Ford and GM in the long term for this very reason. They’re giving up on planting low-profit seeds that will grow into future brand-loyal high-profit customers.
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Agree 100%. I think Ford and GM just gave up.
Well , I can . We bought a new 2018 Ford Fiesta SE automatic . It has yet to deliver less than 30 MPG in our combined city and highway normal driving . On a 1500 mile vacation to the Colorado mountains it averaged 38.6 MPG and not one time did we feel deprived of comfort . And for the actual price we paid no second thoughts there either.