Quote:
Originally Posted by eurohazard
I don't understand statements like this. I would say Korean cars are affecting Toyota.......but I would hardly say "hurting". Have you seen the Camry and Corolla sales figures? What are they #2 and #3 I believe for the month of June? It took Hyundai 20 years to earn my respect. If, or more likely when Chinese cars come here, I fully expect crap for 5 years or so, and maybe some respect in 20 or so years. That's my thoughts anyway.
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Corolla and Camry...
No 1 and No 2 in June
No 2 and No 3 in May
Yes the hope of some who hate Toyota that some 'black knight' from the depths of Darkest Asia will come and smite Toyota are just that... hopes only. The actual competition for which they should be rooting is Honda and/or Nissan. Both are established here with significant volume and domestic production.
Even if....either the Chinese or Koreans could make a full range of vehicles for this market the simple fact is that this market is not very interesting to any vehicle maker now. We are a fully saturated market with essentially one vehicle for every driving adult. The only growth in volume will be the normal growth ofthe population and the addition of immigrants. All the growth in the world is in Asia, their own back yard.
To succeed here a vehicle maker has to invest here. Large investments of this sort run $Billions ( see separate VW thread ) and that's in a highly regulated market with very restrictive limitations. Hello, GM, Ford and Chysler are vacating the NA market as fast as they can. Asia is the growth area for large multinational companies.
Chinese and/or Korean vehicle makers might nip at the heels of Toyota and Honda but they'd first have to set up major operations here and essentially drive the Detroiters out of their own market. Very very bad juju.
Honda the most natural competitor to Toyota is actually just a tiny little pup trying to play with the Big Dogs. It's really only a major force in NA. Everywhere else it's nothing ... literally. In most countries outside of NA and Japan it's not even an auto maker. It's a cycle maker or an engine maker. In the NA market its two biggest vehicles are the Civic and Accord and neither can match the Corolla and Camry in terms of production capacity. At full capacity for both companies the Civic/Accord simply cannot surpass the Corolla/Camry. It can of course build additional facilities but then it goes back to the previous point of 'Why invest in a mature, fully saturated market with little or no growth potential and severe restrictions and regulations?'.
Why not spend that money in the home markets of Asia with much much better growth prospects and little or no restrictions?