Category Archives: Cars
Virtual Test Drive
I really like Dodge’s commercials lately. Will it make me consider Dodge? No, but I smile at them.
Here is a good one:
Pricing at Car Dealership
I passed by a car dealership today on my way from work. It was a Ford dealer, but they had a used Toyota, presumably that someone traded in.
I thought about whether there would be any pressure to price the Toyota artificially low. Ford probably wants their own cars to look like they have good re-sale values compared to other brands. Therefore, they could be motivated to artificially deflate their competition’s cars to compare well.
You can see a dealer pointing out that they had to sell the Toyota so low, because no one wants it, while the Ford is priced higher. I think pricing the other branded car higher than your own is a better method than inflating your own brand’s value.
The downside of course, is that the dealer would get reduced profits from their sale of the car with its lower value. I wonder if this actually goes on at dealerships. With so much information available to consumers, it seems it would be easy to compare and reference what a car should cost.
Beyond the Steering Wheel
By now you have probably heard about Google’s project involving Driverless Cars. Google has put their detailed mapping of the country along with their enormous computing power and technology in order to allow cars to drive themselves.
But imagine the possibilities. Drunk driving could be a thing of the past. After a night of drinking you just enter in your address, maybe a stop by a fast food place on the way, and you arrive safely at home. Or, think about 24 hour taxi service. Instead of wondering if there will be a cab available at a late hour, you just go to a website, enter in your pickup and drop off addresses. When the car arrives you get a text, go out and have a ride home. No tired cab drivers. No night shift.
GM: General Mismanagement
Part of General Motors’ restructuring involved shedding some brands. They got rid of Pontiac, Saab, Saturn and Hummer. They kept Chevy, Buick, GMC, and Cadillac. I think it was a mistake that they kept the Buick brand.
I recently caught an ad for a new Buick.
Note, they compare the car to Lexus, BMW, Audi. If I were to tell you this were a GM ad, you would probably jump to Cadillac once you heard those comparisons. So, it seems they are trying to bring the Buick brand up into the luxury market. Admittedly, this apparently was where Buick was positioned when it first came out. When you made it, you bought a Buick – true excess was left for Cadillac owners.
But that is not the market we live in now. I would suggest even Cadillac has trouble staying in certain consumer’s minds with Lexus Acura and other luxury brands. Certainly Buick won’t fit in there. But GM insists they are both luxury. So, GM will have to price Cadillac in the stratosphere to separate the brands. Which is more than most people would say a Cadillac is worth.
I found this statistic that shows the average age of a Buick buyer is 70. 70! So, what does this tell us? Maybe Buick still is held in high regards with those older generations who remember when it was a luxury brand. However, young people don’t see it anymore. What is going to happen to this brand when the current kids get older? Will they sudden see the light and think to buy a Buick? Frankly, no.
So, basically Buick is doomed. Good move, GM. My solution? GM should have killed off Buick, focused on Cadillac as its sole luxury brand. Then, they should have kept Pontiac, but remade it. GM has trouble with the youth market, as I alluded to above. So make Pontiac the Scion (Toyota’s youth focused brand) of GM. Toyota saw that people were taking its (and competitor’s) cars and then doing a bunch of aftermarket things to them to personalize them. They simply introduced a cheaper brand, and moved the aftermarket to inside the dealer. GM should have made the same move with Pontiac. Make it a youth focused car company, with a lot of options for personalization and a focus on cheap performance. Then, once the kids have been hooked on the GM brand for a few years, they might look to Chevy or Cadillac instead of Honda and BMW.
What I think makes this extra interesting is the collapse of Toyota quality on public display recently. This would be the perfect opportunity for GM to showcase some quality cars. No parent wants to send Tiffany off to college in a corolla with bad brakes. This would be the perfect time for a cool new quality GM. What do you think – will you be buying a Toyota anytime soon? I read that they have been cutting costs to increase profits. I think they are suffering what the American auto makers went through in the 90s, which can be expected when a manufacturer sees extraordinary growth. Now the turnaround happens with an increased focus on quality to bring back the luster to the tarnished brand. I would probably not buy a Toyota today- but in 5 years or so, I can see them being optimal again.
Want Quick Service at Your Car Dealer? Don’t Pay.
I got a notice in the mail for a recall notice on my explorer. I took it in to the local Ford dealer. I was fully expecting to have to endure the normal day long wait typical when I go in for any kind of service on my car.
To my astonishment not long after I dropped it off I got a call that it was done. I was shocked. This dealer is actually pretty advanced and emails you when you drop your car off, and when it is done. Note the time stamp – the repair took 3(!) minutes.
Lesson? If you want to get in and out quick, take it in for a recall if you have a big repair. When you aren’t paying, they get you in and out quick.
In all seriousness, they offer great service. I’ve been there before and they actually are surprisingly quick with repairs. If you need service on a Ford check out Universal Ford in Richmond.
Your Foreign Car Only Has the Illusion Of Being Safer
Everytime I hear someone parrot the opinion that “foreign cars are more reliable and safer” I sigh to myself and shake my head.
Foreign cars have just as many problems as American cars. They simply hide (lie) about their defects more. This happens over and over. There have been numerous lawsuits conerning defects that Honda or Toyota refuse to acknowledge.
In yet another example- Toyota finally admitted their accelerator pedals were getting stuck to their floormats. This has gone on for years, but they finally fessed up to it. You may hear about recalls for Fords and GM cars more often, but at least they are announcing and fixing their problems. I’d rather take my car in 3 times to get fixed than drive around not knowing my car could malfunction and kill me.
Fuel System Gentrification
Part of the hurdles of getting electric vehicles to really take off is that in most cities there isn’t an infrastructure in place to provide charging stations for the fleet of vehicles.
In an interesting case of serendipity, there is another infrastructure that is phasing out – phone booths. Now that everyone uses a cell phone, these relics from another time aren’t as necessary. Instead of just leaving them to be blights, or paying to have them removed people have figured out they can be repurposed as electric car chargers.
It’s an ingenious idea since telephone booths are often located close to curbs, and they already have built-in electricity supplies. As a result, it’s cheaper to convert the booths into charging stations than to build the stations from scratch.
How neat of an idea is that?
More problems with VA’s new license system
I’ve mentioned my problems with the new VA driver’s licenses previously.
Add one more thing to my list of grievences -you can’t smile in your photo.
On first thought- who cares, right? But the reason for the rule is important. You can’t smile because there is software that analyzes your photo to make sure your photo isn’t used on another license. And the software doesn’t recognize smiles well. The reason for the software? Less chance of identity theft. Which is good. But the state is going to keep an algorithm calculation of your photo.
Can tracking really be that far away? Soon when somoene is accused of committing a crime, they will theoretically be able to search photos for your specific face in surveilance cameras. Is it really too big of a step to see they will soon be able to track all your movement? Bye bye privacy. (Side note: Yes, I twitter, use facebook, etc etc. I have no problem giving up my privacy voluntarily. I do not like when you don’t have the option to stay anonymous.)
Oil down, Gas Up?
You might have noticed this the past few weeks as well. As the price of oil continues to fall to insane lows, especially after how high it was this time last year, the price of gas is going back up. What’s up with that? NPR ran a story on how this happens, and it has almost convinced me it is not a conspiracy…
The price of gas is indeed tied to oil. It’s just a matter of which oil.
The benchmark for crude oil prices is West Texas Intermediate, drilled exactly where you would imagine. That’s the price, set at the New York Mercantile Exchange, that you see quoted on business channels and in the morning paper.
Right now, in an unusual market trend, West Texas crude is selling for much less than inferior grades of crude from other places around the world. A severe economic downturn has left U.S. storage facilities brimming with it, sending prices for the premium crude to five-year lows.
But it is the overseas crude that goes into most of the gas made in the United States. So prices at the pump will probably keep going up no matter what happens to the benchmark price of crude oil.
The recession in America has dramatically cut demand for crude oil, and inventories are piling up. So prices for West Texas crude have fallen well below what oil costs from places like the North Sea, Saudi Arabia and South America.
The other problem is that since oil is cheap now, there is a disincentive to produce it. In fact, OPEC has, and is rumored to be again slashing its production. Since the economic downturn, less fuel is being used. So, the price plummeted. Now, they will cut output to lower supply to match demand. The result? The price will go up again.
At the same time, refiners have seen the same headlines as everyone else about job losses and consumer spending. They’ve slashed production just to avoid taking losses on gasoline no one will buy. Result: Higher gas prices.
“Why should a refiner produce more gasoline when the stuff we produce is not being used?” Drevna said.
Of course, complex explanations of the diverging price paths of West Texas crude and gas are unlikely to placate frustrated drivers. Memories of last summer’s $4-plus gas have not receded.
The interesting part will be what happens when the economy recovers, demand increases and the price REALLY skyrockets.
How to Save GM- the Marketing Side
GM is in trouble. Jeffery Feldman wrote on HuffPo that largely this is due to the public perception of GM. GM is seen as old, unreliable and dirty compared to its peer manufacturers.
To succeed again, GM must do more than build good cars. GM must find a path from ‘buy American’ to ‘buy green’ and then it must become that path. It must not only find a way to market itself as a premier car company for transportation invested in environmental stewardship, but also create the means for millions of Americans to identify anew with their products as the country embraces a more sustainable economic and cultural story.
Americans don’t feel aobut american car companies like they do about, for example, Apple. There is no cache status or reason to buy american. “American” cars are made in Mexico, and Foreign companies have factories here in the states. There is no easy argument for buying american anymore.
Instead we buy based on very personal motives. We want a very reliable car that gets good gas mileage and has some prestige. (see the prius) GM needs to get into this mindset.
So, GM needs to shift focus. The tagline would be “GM – Green Motors”. Shift people’s perception from big, dirty SUVs to cars like the Volt. This is how american made cars will stay relevant.
