When I worked for Saturn (at a local retailer) I was dismayed by the Automobile Dealers' idea of successful marketing. The typical ploy went like this - go to your marketing firm, pick a geographic area, set a range for desirable credit card scores, refine the population list by score, design and drop a mailing, and go. The typical mailing promised some kind of schmeeke, where you got some worthless trinkets or a chance at winning a car (which I'm sure was run in a fair and transparent manner) and maybe, maybe, some small percentage of the people walking through the front door would buy a car. See, the point of the advertising wasn't to find people who want to buy a car - the point of the advertising was to increase floor traffic. The standard maxim is that you can close (get someone to agree to buy 33% of the time). So, if you get 300 people through the door, you should sell 99 cars. If you want to sell more cars, you need to get more people through the door. Supply side economics at it's finest.
The whole arrangement seemed wasteful to me, and I was sure the better information was available that could be used in different ways. In my position as Financial Services Manager, I maintained my own databases, and often manipulated the data to reveal trends that might normally escape notice. In looking at these, comparing it with what I had observed in my interviews with customers, viewing credit reports, and aggregated loan and credit bureau information, an increasingly clear profile of our customers became clear.
Toyota Motor Corp. officials are concerned the company may be expanding its manufacturing operations too quickly in the United States, according to a report in Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal. The report says some board members believe Toyota needs to slow the construction of new plants in the United States in the face of difficult market conditions, rising costs and quality issues.
Advertisement Toyota, which has 13 plants in North America, has been rapidly expanding in recent years with U.S. sales increasing at double-digit rates. Toyota opened a truck plant last fall in San Antonio and a Camry plant this year in Lafayette, Ind.
The New York International Auto Show (which humbles the Philadelphia show, and is easily the equal of Chicago or Los Angeles, and is only eclipsed by Detroit) starts this week. You can find more NYIAS coverage at Autoblog and Jalopnik.
I am plenty excited by the technology that General Motors seems to be promising with the Chevrolet Volt (info via AutoblogGreen). The specifications are exactly what we need in a daily commuter (plus the fact that it's easy on the eyes):
The Volt has a range of about 40 miles on the battery alone which might not seem like much. But, considering that most people drive fewer miles than that per day, it should mean that a lot of drivers will never use a drop of gas on their daily commute. However, when the fuel tank is filled to it's capacity of 12 US gallons of gas, the Volt has a range of 640 miles. In addition, the Volt ICE is fully flex fuel capable and can run on any combination of gasoline or ethanol up to E85. The power-train is sized to achieve 0-60 mph acceleration of about 8.5 seconds.
I heard a cheesy cover of the Kinks' "You Really Got Me", which reminded me of the Van Halen cover, which reminded me of the Nissan 300ZX commerical featuring a GIJoe/Barbie-slash-RC-Z commercial. The best part of this commercial was that at the time it aired, the 300ZX had already ended it's production run. So they were advertising a vehicle that could no longer be bought new.
Saturn Aura via Autoblog: Good looking car, horrible Chrysler Concorde alloy wheels.
Saturn Sky Redline via Autoblog: Looks tight - give me Pontiac Solstice pricing with Sky looks, and we got adeal
The Saturn PreVUE is a warmed over Opel Antara concept, but still good looking.
I just don't like the front of the Saturn Outlook - it reminds me too much of the Infiniti QX56's strange grill. In other news, GM should euthanize the Trailblazer/Envoy, and replace it with properly contented Tahoes and a Chevy platform-mate to the new crossovers.
…in this thread at GMInsideNews. Seems Honda is cutting back on production at their truck plant, including the award winning Ridgeline (which I correctly guessed would be a flop) as well as the Pilot, Odyssey, and MDX. Just goes to show that the consumer is usually smarter than the manufacturer, as well as the print magazines that have been heaping praise and awards onto the Ridgeline’s hood. It seems that the response on the internets to Toyota’s full size truck, the all-new Tundra, seems to be lukewarm as well.
Should be interesting to see how this plays out, especially given the domestic auto industry’s death watch in the media.
For some people, the holiest time of year may be Christmas, Easter, Hanukah, Passover, Chinese New Year, Ramadan, or what have you.
For others, it may be Summer Movie Season, "New Releases" of CDs, Games, and DVDs on Tuesdays, or Monday Night Football.
For me, my favorite time of the year is Car Show Season. I love looking at the coverage, the concept cars, guessing which ones will make to production, which one's will flop.
