Any article on why US manufactures of vehicles focus on trucks instead of cars and does not mention the chicken tax [1] has not really done their homework. In 1965 a 25% tax was put on imported trucks due to a trade fight with Europe on chicken imports. This 25% tax is still in effect today. SUVs were also put in the truck category for some time and it is not clear which truck like vehicles will be taxed. This is why almost all trucks and SUVs made by non-US companies are manufactured in the US.
Profit margins on US made trucks have been much larger than autos for a long time(mostly due to this tax) and I imagine that all the marketing of the US auto companies over 40 years to get people to buy them instead of sedans has had quite an effect. Once a large number of people are driving tall trucks and SUVs, driving a car is much less comfortable, as you can't see past the truck in front of you from a low sedan.
Most manufacturers have already figured out how to game the chicken tax. For example, Ford installs seats that are removed and destroyed after each Transit Connect reaches the US [0]. I've heard other stories about Subaru doing something similar so that their CAFE metrics weren't screwed.
> Once a large number of people are driving tall trucks and SUVs, driving a car is much less comfortable, as you can't see past the truck in front of you from a low sedan.
So just don't tailgate the car in front of you and then it doesn't matter. If the only way you're going to be able to stop in time is if you can see past/through the car in front of you then you're not driving safely to begin with.
This is also why the Subaru Brat had rear seats. Because it allowed Subaru to classify the vehicle as a car instead of a truck, circumventing the Chicken Tax.
BMWs largest factory is in Spartanburg, South Carolina and they produce X series vehicles. Mercedes also makes a lot if not all the the GL line in Alabama. They both export out of the US as well.
I suppose it helps American manufacturing and creates jobs. I don’t like “trade wars” but import taxes are not all bad.
In my opinion US trucks are the best SUVs are great but too large for what folks use them for. Japan is good with both cars, suvs, and trucks but they are lackluster on the inside. German cars are my favorite but they are expensive to maintain and unreliable. American cars are terrible unless you like muscle cars.
> Profit margins on US made trucks have been much larger than autos for a long time(mostly due to this tax)
I think it may have more to do with selling fuel efficient compact cars and sedans at a loss in order to sell enough to offset the poor economy of the American Truck™ and meet CAFE requirements.
Also. You get a big truck/SUV for the same reason people prefer a big TV or a large suburban home than a 2 bedroom condo. Bigger is better, at least in the U.S.
They killed the Chevy Volt, the only interesting sedan in GM's entire line-up. Incredibly short-sighted. Love it more than any car I've ever driven, despite it lacking in many of the 'creature comforts' of other cars. Fun to drive with excellent acceleration, I drive it 91% electric, and when I flip over to gas it's an excellent performing highly efficient hybrid.
Sad.
EDIT: I should add that really the Volt is not a 'sedan', but a 'liftback'. Far more utility out of the trunk than a typical sedan. My medium sized dog even fits back there.
Even sadder: the Bolt is the affordable electric car that the Tesla Model 3 promised to be but isn't. And yet no one is excited about the Bolt. In fact, probably most people are not even aware that the Bolt exists. Sad indeed.
"They killed the Chevy Volt, the only interesting sedan in GM's entire line-up."
I saw that as great news: moving beyond the hybrid stop-gap towards real electric cars. The Bolt is still for sale and I hope that the platform and their technology move into other GM vehicles.
FWIW, in 30 minutes I will be at the local chevy dealer purchasing a Bolt.
I love my Volt, even having had a Model 3 reservation and done a test drive. I'm not saying it's a better car in any objective sense, but its compromises are areas I'm fine with. Honestly, I can't believe the Volt wasn't more popular. It's probably being due to not educating consumers enough about it, being strange looking, and being a GM.
The car market in its' totality has always struck me as being irrational.
It takes a large amount of number crunching to determine that an old small Japanese car has the cheapest TCO.
The same follows across the categories (e.g. the article's specific focus on sedans).
A whole bunch of mid-market brands seemingly exist for no reason other than for some groups of not-wealthy people to waste money in an attempt to impress other groups of not-wealthy people.
e.g. the German cars which seem to exist as some sort of indicator that someone can afford to burn money maintaining a depreciating asset.
It's basically the (non-smart) watch market, right. You wear a Casio-level watch if you don't care, a Rolex-level watch if you're signalling, and other stuff is basically an enthusiast market.
You are completely discounting the subjective experience of driving different cars. Some cars are just flat-out much more enjoyable to drive. When people are spending significant portions of their lives driving, getting more enjoyment or comfort out of that time matters to people.
It's completely rational to want to enjoy your time driving a vehicle if you spend a lot of time in the car. Driving a chevy cobalt is just awful compared to driving a higher quality vehicle.
You're also far more likely to be able to avoid an accident when you have better handling and more powerful brakes. Even horsepower/torque can be a safety feature for certain accident avoidance situations.
Well, this assumes that it’s all about TCO or status.
But have you ever driven a Mercedes, BMW, Porsche or Audi? The driving expierence is superior to everything else! Tesla gets close...but I can’t think of any other brand that does.
You think it's all about TCO vs. signaling. The trade space has a lot more dimensions, and you're getting a lot of pushback, especially about the "driving experience" dimension.
I'd like to add "reliability" as another dimension that does not seem to have been mentioned yet.
I just exited a beloved "old small Japanese car" (1998 Civic), partly because parts were starting to break down. Usually it was nuisance stuff, but it takes time to fix. The TCO of the old car was well less than (say) the payment on my new car, but I couldn't deal with the unpredictability and the lost time.
It's bonkers if you take the narrow view that cars are strictly about transportation. But of course people desire and enjoy cars and trucks for all kinds of reasons--including aspirational signaling like you describe, but also the experience of driving or riding in them, or even just an appreciation of artful styling or impressive engineering.
The sales trends observed in the article seem to be explained by a mass shifting of tastes.
> It takes a large amount of number crunching to determine that an old small Japanese car has the cheapest TCO.
How so? It's trivial to get the average maintenance costs of a car based on model and year. It doesn't take an excel spreadsheet to conclude that something like a 2010 Toyota Corolla would have lowest TCO
I know why I drive a Volkswagen - it fits. Every American car I have ever driven doesn't work for my 6'5 narrow frame (I'm also long-legged, short torso). There's also the tendency to load up the dash with every possible piece of information and turn the radio into some kind of Microsoft supercomputer.
It's a car - it needs to get me reliably and comfortably from point A to point B with a minimum of distraction, look presentable and connect to my iPhone for music.
The TCO on VWs, in my experience, is very low, mostly because they don't have complex add-ons that break constantly.
You know, there are German cars that are priced competitively.
When I went shopping for a new hatchback moving on from the 20 year old Hold Civic, I did look at Honda Civic, VW Golf and tons of other small hatchbacks and I ended up with the WV which wasn't even the most expensive choice.
> It takes a large amount of number crunching to determine that an old small Japanese car has the cheapest TCO.
Is there some way to include the environmental cost as well? A 10 year old Honda Civic is going to cost less in that regard than a 10 year old BMW 318. But what about a 10 year old Prius?
One point that I'm not seeing clearly articulated in this sub-thread: The US is widely rich. A lot of people can afford to buy things for status-signaling, no matter how silly you and I find it.
Japanese cars annoy the heck out of me. I occasionally (forced to) drive a Toyota Venza. Here my issues:
1. low torque at low RPMs.
2. suspension is too soft.
3. it beeps at me constantly. Lock/unlock door, open door, start car, etc.
4. complicated (too many buttons) screens and radio.
5. doesn't allow me to do things I want: a) open door while in drive, b) turn off all my lights when i turn light switch to off, c) use certain screen functions when i drive.
6. hatch door doesn't open if battery is dead.
I'm sure I'd have more if I actually owned the vehicle. The BMW I own doesn't treat me like an idiot.
Thank you. What you describe is exactly what I've noticed after delving into the car world via rentals.
If you're buying a sedan -- Toyota/Honda/Kia.
If you own a BMW/Audi/Benz, you're not wealthy and you're just signalling to other non-wealthy individuals. It's interesting because most of the BMW/Audi/Benz look terrible and are way cheaper than most expect yet still a terrible, arrogant waste of capital.
Only a few brands don't match this. Tesla and Range Rover. The former for obvious reasons. The latter because no comparable high-end SUV exists.
If you bought a Ford/Chevy, you're asking for reliability issues.
"Once Americans began driving Hondas and Toyotas, they discovered that these cars had a lot more going for them than just gas mileage — they broke down infrequently, could last for hundreds of thousands of miles, and were even fun to drive."
If the US sedan makers can't compete then they should deprecate those cars. Why make something that people aren't buying? Cars are too expensive these days to have to pay for frequent maintenance or fit-and-finish issues. Never mind the fact that "American" cars are not as American as they used to be and the Camry isn't distinctively Japanese.
I can't help but to believe that GM and Ford are making the same mistake they made in the early 70s and the 90s. Piling on the big cars when gas prices are low, then watch their share of the market collapse when gas prices get higher as they always have in the past.
To GM's credit they claim they'll be putting a lot of the short term savings into EVs and AVs, but time will tell.
Japanese sedans are dead too. It'll just take a bit longer.
Sedans simply do not offer enough utility or fun per dollar to stay relevant. In France, where I'm from, sedans have been utterly dead from as long as I can remember. People just buy hatchbacks instead.
Sedans stayed alive in the USA thanks to wider roads, larger parking spots, and a persistent notion that hatchbacks are tiny cheap econoboxes that you wouldn't want to be seen in (which, to be fair, is often the case, even though there are very good hatchbacks like the VW Golf).
CUVs and SUVs have overcome this stigma and are set to accomplish what hatchbacks failed to do in the US market: kill sedans. I expect very few people to go back to buying sedans after having owned CUVs or SUVs, unless it's a somewhat niche sedan like a BMW M3, Mercedes S-Class, Tesla Model 3, etc.
My hard-working parents bought a new Ford during my childhood, in the 1970s. The car was a lemon that broke down a lot, they hated that car. I've never forgiven Ford either, in our extended family today there are no Ford owners and never will be.
American sedans are dead because the Big 3 American automakers never invested in making sedans. They always borrowed tech from other companies.
Just about every Ford sedan platform and engine was built on top of Mazda or Volvo designs. It's not surprising that Ford lost access to those designs when it sold off Volvo and then Mazda.
Similarly, GM designs were from Suzuki and Opel. They've been divesting from Suzuki and Opel for a better part of a decade now. It seems like they also reached the point where they've been cut off from platforms and engines.
Chrysler luckily still has Fiat to borrow car platforms and engines from. They also have partnerships with Hyundai group. So I think they'll keep making sedans, just because they still have access to that tech.
The American sedan is being killed off because they were never American in the first place.
How is it that the cycle of cheap gas = people buy gas guzzling SUVs, gas goes up = people go back to gas sipping cars, keeps repeating? I swear in my lifetime I've seen this cycle repeat three times now.
I'm a city boy so mind the ignorance, but who is buying up all the trucks? I get the allure of a nice SUV/crossover, my next car will probably be one since I think the space is useful for when thinking about starting a family, but a truck never seemed that feasible for non-commercial use.
I live in what most would consider rural America. Most people are buying the midsized SUVs, not necessarily the full size. Once you leave the city things change... things aren't on top of each other when you leave the city, so driving a big vehicle isn't as frustrating. we have big parking lots(parking spaces are bigger and not full, making it easier to park further out), no underground parking(height isn't an issue), real estate isn't as expensive so developers leave more parking and wider driveways, etc.
I dread taking my truck into the city, but for average day to day life its much better then what id choose as a daily drive if i lived in the city full time. About the only thing a small car has an advantage on is parking and getting into and out of tight places, and MPG.
TBH, I think a lot of it is just about presenting an image.
I grew up in a rural area, and a lot of the trucks in town rarely carried anything of note in the bed, because their owners didn't want the paint to get scratched.
I've driven a Chevy Impala. It drove OK, but it looked and felt really cheap inside. I've owned Chrysler, Chevy, and Ford. It was the Ford product -- that I bought new -- that drove me (in many senses) to the Honda dealer.
I've bought 7 new Hondas since. Why? Every American car I had owned got at least one tow-truck ride to get repaired. The Ford had to be towed to the dealer for service _three_ times.
I've purchased several sedans before but will probably never buy another one. Sedans are really miserable for those of us who enjoy outdoor sports. Sure it's possible to use a sedan to transport equipment for scuba diving, cycling, kayaking, skiing, etc but other vehicle styles are far more comfortable and practical.
I'm seeing a lot of cars on the road that fit the wheel-base of a sedan, but are larger. Here are a few models that come to mind: Hyundai Kona [0], BMW X2 [1], Nissan LEAF (though this is an all electric offering) [2], and I'm sure there are more.
My point is, there are vehicles that are roughly the same size that fill the needs of people who would have purchased a sedan.
I'm guessing that if we refactored the numbers in terms of wheel-base and interior volume we'd see people are buying similar wheel-based cars with more interior volume.
[edit]
AND it looks like I missed a crucial piece of the title, so here are some 'murican cars that fit the description above: Chevy Trax [3], Buick Encore [4].
The article says that Americans never really regained trust in American manufactured sedans since the 60s/70s. But then doesn't explain.. who exactly was buying all those sedans.. while not trusting them? There definitely were a LOT of American sedan sales for a while there.
I looked at a Fusion a few years ago before deciding to buy an Accord. There was a $10K price differential in favor of the Honda. This was mainly because all American sedans at the same price point had far lower reliability scores and were much smaller cars. There were no "American" sedans other than the Fusion worth considering for reliability and non-shoebox size. The third factor was resale value.
I simply got more for my money buying the Honda. I wasn't the least bit interested in an SUV or pickup truck.
> Meanwhile, the American automakers raced to come out with their own small, fuel-efficient sedans. But their products were often shoddy, poorly designed and technologically deficient
I wonder if this wasn't intentional. That is, were there bean counters at Ford etc. that were worried that sales of the small sedans would cannibalize sales of their higher-margin autos? Seems to be the way of things in the past four decades or so....
I bought a Japanese vehicle that ended up being a lemon. The dealerships were generally polite to me when I brought it in for repairs.
(Against my better judgement) I bought an American plug-in hybrid that randomly stops charging. The dealership is flat out rude and constantly blames my charger. (The charger worked fine for 4 years with my old Leaf)
The last American sedan I owned was a 1974 Dodge Dart. Terrible car, but my sister's 1980 Dodge Aspen was much worse.
I've looked at American cars in the intervening years but I haven't seen anything to change my initial bad impression. They always seem like they're a step below in both form and function.
[+] [-] njarboe|7 years ago|reply
Profit margins on US made trucks have been much larger than autos for a long time(mostly due to this tax) and I imagine that all the marketing of the US auto companies over 40 years to get people to buy them instead of sedans has had quite an effect. Once a large number of people are driving tall trucks and SUVs, driving a car is much less comfortable, as you can't see past the truck in front of you from a low sedan.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax
[+] [-] coredog64|7 years ago|reply
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Transit_Connect#Tariff_ci....
[+] [-] jonknee|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Alex3917|7 years ago|reply
So just don't tailgate the car in front of you and then it doesn't matter. If the only way you're going to be able to stop in time is if you can see past/through the car in front of you then you're not driving safely to begin with.
[+] [-] zelon88|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wil421|7 years ago|reply
I suppose it helps American manufacturing and creates jobs. I don’t like “trade wars” but import taxes are not all bad.
In my opinion US trucks are the best SUVs are great but too large for what folks use them for. Japan is good with both cars, suvs, and trucks but they are lackluster on the inside. German cars are my favorite but they are expensive to maintain and unreliable. American cars are terrible unless you like muscle cars.
[+] [-] black6|7 years ago|reply
I think it may have more to do with selling fuel efficient compact cars and sedans at a loss in order to sell enough to offset the poor economy of the American Truck™ and meet CAFE requirements.
[+] [-] mtw|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pixelperfect|7 years ago|reply
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/10677911017828311...
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/10677926101804564...
[+] [-] cmrdporcupine|7 years ago|reply
Sad.
EDIT: I should add that really the Volt is not a 'sedan', but a 'liftback'. Far more utility out of the trunk than a typical sedan. My medium sized dog even fits back there.
[+] [-] lisper|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rsync|7 years ago|reply
I saw that as great news: moving beyond the hybrid stop-gap towards real electric cars. The Bolt is still for sale and I hope that the platform and their technology move into other GM vehicles.
FWIW, in 30 minutes I will be at the local chevy dealer purchasing a Bolt.
[+] [-] sf_rob|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CydeWeys|7 years ago|reply
It's like the other manufacturers are rushing to cede the entire market to Tesla.
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] s0rce|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whalesalad|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] esotericn|7 years ago|reply
It takes a large amount of number crunching to determine that an old small Japanese car has the cheapest TCO.
The same follows across the categories (e.g. the article's specific focus on sedans).
A whole bunch of mid-market brands seemingly exist for no reason other than for some groups of not-wealthy people to waste money in an attempt to impress other groups of not-wealthy people.
e.g. the German cars which seem to exist as some sort of indicator that someone can afford to burn money maintaining a depreciating asset.
It's basically the (non-smart) watch market, right. You wear a Casio-level watch if you don't care, a Rolex-level watch if you're signalling, and other stuff is basically an enthusiast market.
[+] [-] tcoff91|7 years ago|reply
It's completely rational to want to enjoy your time driving a vehicle if you spend a lot of time in the car. Driving a chevy cobalt is just awful compared to driving a higher quality vehicle.
You're also far more likely to be able to avoid an accident when you have better handling and more powerful brakes. Even horsepower/torque can be a safety feature for certain accident avoidance situations.
[+] [-] rock_hard|7 years ago|reply
But have you ever driven a Mercedes, BMW, Porsche or Audi? The driving expierence is superior to everything else! Tesla gets close...but I can’t think of any other brand that does.
[+] [-] mturmon|7 years ago|reply
I'd like to add "reliability" as another dimension that does not seem to have been mentioned yet.
I just exited a beloved "old small Japanese car" (1998 Civic), partly because parts were starting to break down. Usually it was nuisance stuff, but it takes time to fix. The TCO of the old car was well less than (say) the payment on my new car, but I couldn't deal with the unpredictability and the lost time.
[+] [-] matthewmcg|7 years ago|reply
The sales trends observed in the article seem to be explained by a mass shifting of tastes.
[+] [-] sunshinelackof|7 years ago|reply
Consumers aren't known for their rationality.
[+] [-] mtw|7 years ago|reply
How so? It's trivial to get the average maintenance costs of a car based on model and year. It doesn't take an excel spreadsheet to conclude that something like a 2010 Toyota Corolla would have lowest TCO
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] drivingmenuts|7 years ago|reply
It's a car - it needs to get me reliably and comfortably from point A to point B with a minimum of distraction, look presentable and connect to my iPhone for music.
The TCO on VWs, in my experience, is very low, mostly because they don't have complex add-ons that break constantly.
[+] [-] d1zzy|7 years ago|reply
When I went shopping for a new hatchback moving on from the 20 year old Hold Civic, I did look at Honda Civic, VW Golf and tons of other small hatchbacks and I ended up with the WV which wasn't even the most expensive choice.
[+] [-] criddell|7 years ago|reply
Is there some way to include the environmental cost as well? A 10 year old Honda Civic is going to cost less in that regard than a 10 year old BMW 318. But what about a 10 year old Prius?
[+] [-] gniv|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] appleiigs|7 years ago|reply
1. low torque at low RPMs.
2. suspension is too soft.
3. it beeps at me constantly. Lock/unlock door, open door, start car, etc.
4. complicated (too many buttons) screens and radio.
5. doesn't allow me to do things I want: a) open door while in drive, b) turn off all my lights when i turn light switch to off, c) use certain screen functions when i drive.
6. hatch door doesn't open if battery is dead.
I'm sure I'd have more if I actually owned the vehicle. The BMW I own doesn't treat me like an idiot.
[+] [-] MoBattah|7 years ago|reply
If you're buying a sedan -- Toyota/Honda/Kia.
If you own a BMW/Audi/Benz, you're not wealthy and you're just signalling to other non-wealthy individuals. It's interesting because most of the BMW/Audi/Benz look terrible and are way cheaper than most expect yet still a terrible, arrogant waste of capital.
Only a few brands don't match this. Tesla and Range Rover. The former for obvious reasons. The latter because no comparable high-end SUV exists.
If you bought a Ford/Chevy, you're asking for reliability issues.
[+] [-] bitrrrate|7 years ago|reply
"Once Americans began driving Hondas and Toyotas, they discovered that these cars had a lot more going for them than just gas mileage — they broke down infrequently, could last for hundreds of thousands of miles, and were even fun to drive."
If the US sedan makers can't compete then they should deprecate those cars. Why make something that people aren't buying? Cars are too expensive these days to have to pay for frequent maintenance or fit-and-finish issues. Never mind the fact that "American" cars are not as American as they used to be and the Camry isn't distinctively Japanese.
[+] [-] bwanab|7 years ago|reply
To GM's credit they claim they'll be putting a lot of the short term savings into EVs and AVs, but time will tell.
[+] [-] peferron|7 years ago|reply
Sedans simply do not offer enough utility or fun per dollar to stay relevant. In France, where I'm from, sedans have been utterly dead from as long as I can remember. People just buy hatchbacks instead.
Sedans stayed alive in the USA thanks to wider roads, larger parking spots, and a persistent notion that hatchbacks are tiny cheap econoboxes that you wouldn't want to be seen in (which, to be fair, is often the case, even though there are very good hatchbacks like the VW Golf).
CUVs and SUVs have overcome this stigma and are set to accomplish what hatchbacks failed to do in the US market: kill sedans. I expect very few people to go back to buying sedans after having owned CUVs or SUVs, unless it's a somewhat niche sedan like a BMW M3, Mercedes S-Class, Tesla Model 3, etc.
[+] [-] mobilefriendly|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kenhwang|7 years ago|reply
Just about every Ford sedan platform and engine was built on top of Mazda or Volvo designs. It's not surprising that Ford lost access to those designs when it sold off Volvo and then Mazda.
Similarly, GM designs were from Suzuki and Opel. They've been divesting from Suzuki and Opel for a better part of a decade now. It seems like they also reached the point where they've been cut off from platforms and engines.
Chrysler luckily still has Fiat to borrow car platforms and engines from. They also have partnerships with Hyundai group. So I think they'll keep making sedans, just because they still have access to that tech.
The American sedan is being killed off because they were never American in the first place.
[+] [-] chaoticmass|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 40acres|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mtnGoat|7 years ago|reply
I dread taking my truck into the city, but for average day to day life its much better then what id choose as a daily drive if i lived in the city full time. About the only thing a small car has an advantage on is parking and getting into and out of tight places, and MPG.
[+] [-] bunderbunder|7 years ago|reply
I grew up in a rural area, and a lot of the trucks in town rarely carried anything of note in the bed, because their owners didn't want the paint to get scratched.
[+] [-] nrjames|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] loph|7 years ago|reply
I've bought 7 new Hondas since. Why? Every American car I had owned got at least one tow-truck ride to get repaired. The Ford had to be towed to the dealer for service _three_ times.
The Hondas have never left me stranded.
[+] [-] nradov|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] all2|7 years ago|reply
The above contains relevant numbers.
I'm seeing a lot of cars on the road that fit the wheel-base of a sedan, but are larger. Here are a few models that come to mind: Hyundai Kona [0], BMW X2 [1], Nissan LEAF (though this is an all electric offering) [2], and I'm sure there are more.
My point is, there are vehicles that are roughly the same size that fill the needs of people who would have purchased a sedan.
I'm guessing that if we refactored the numbers in terms of wheel-base and interior volume we'd see people are buying similar wheel-based cars with more interior volume.
[0] https://www.hyundaiusa.com/kona/index.aspx [1] https://www.bmwusa.com/vehicles/x-models/x2/sports-activity-... [2] https://www.nissanusa.com/vehicles/electric-cars/leaf.html
[edit] AND it looks like I missed a crucial piece of the title, so here are some 'murican cars that fit the description above: Chevy Trax [3], Buick Encore [4].
[3] https://www.chevrolet.com/suvs/trax-compact-suv [4] https://www.buick.com/suvs/encore-small-luxury-suv
[/edit]
[+] [-] penglish1|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mikeash|7 years ago|reply
Looking at the best selling vehicles in the US for October 2018, there’s an American sedan in the top 20, but it’s not made by the Big Three.
[+] [-] slowmovintarget|7 years ago|reply
I simply got more for my money buying the Honda. I wasn't the least bit interested in an SUV or pickup truck.
[+] [-] JKCalhoun|7 years ago|reply
I wonder if this wasn't intentional. That is, were there bean counters at Ford etc. that were worried that sales of the small sedans would cannibalize sales of their higher-margin autos? Seems to be the way of things in the past four decades or so....
[+] [-] gwbas1c|7 years ago|reply
I bought a Japanese vehicle that ended up being a lemon. The dealerships were generally polite to me when I brought it in for repairs.
(Against my better judgement) I bought an American plug-in hybrid that randomly stops charging. The dealership is flat out rude and constantly blames my charger. (The charger worked fine for 4 years with my old Leaf)
[+] [-] mark-r|7 years ago|reply
I've looked at American cars in the intervening years but I haven't seen anything to change my initial bad impression. They always seem like they're a step below in both form and function.