How did Toyota become #1?

Wow it sounds like you live in a high crime area

 

We destroyed China's enemy (see The Rape of Nanking). China should love the USA.

 

Well I wasn't quite suggesting that demand manipulation by US auto groups was the sole driver, just that it weighs in there somewhere.

I've certainly met people who'd agree with one part or another of the characterizations you've listed, so I take your point too.

 

Some years back I carpooled with some friends in their, I think it was a powder blue Chevy Chevette. As the miles went by, I found that I hated more and more just being in the car. Carefully I felt them out for their opinions and discovered that they called it "The Shitbox", a name that I had never heard before but agreed with instantly. After detailed discussion, our consensus was that Chevrolet was actively punishing us for having the nerve to buy a small car.

That evening we went to start the car so we could go home, and it would crank but it Would. Not. Start. We discovered that if you opened the hood and didn't turn on a light, you could see a little thunderstorm up on the top of the engine every time it cranked. The wires that carried power from the distributer to the spark plugs were clean and undamaged, but they were leaking to any available ground, or each other. Chevy could not be arsed to so much as insulate the wires on a small car.

Later when I went to get a small car for myself I didn't even think about looking at chevies...

 

Perhaps a Pao then...

 

What I found was that Toyota and Honda made small cars that were actually nice, so that's where I looked. My sense was that Detroit was only making small cars to get the feds off their back, and that they had no real interest in this market segment.

 

Yeah I think a lot of the manufacturers are into "punishment", with their small cars and/or base models; stripping out functionality, mainly to push customers to the pricier options. For example, the way Toyota limits the Prius touch-to-unlock to the driver's door only, with their base model. I wouldn't be surprised if the components for 2 front doors and hatch version were in place, just defeated somehow.

 

I would agree wholeheartedly with that statement.

My first small car was a 1970 VW bug. For those who don't remember or were too young: Volkswagen of the 1950s and 1960s was on a mission to profit from the divorce of quality from luxury, and they were quite successful.

Everything they built was extremely high quality, but also plain, simple and inexpensive. People would mock them for being dowdy or plain, but VW sold millions of them and owners were banking the savings mile after mile.

I think it's fairly obvious that Japanese automakers were in part inspired by Volkswagen's success.

I feel very fortunate to have had that experience early on- I learned that it was possible to buy and drive excellent high quality cars without them having to be large, heavy, or packed full of expensive features.

And so when I experienced my friends' small inexpensive American-made cars, the 's-box' term came to mind rather quickly and naturally.

In fact it actually took me a while to realize that there were some decent American-made cars out there, because all I'd seen & driven were those s-box rolling penalties. I let myself assume that every Ford was as bad as an '82 Escort. What does a 1980 Chevette say about GM? The 1981 Dodge Omni represented Chrysler to my generation.

So it remains to this day: I do think there are a few well-made American cars, but precious few of them are the right size & shape for my family's needs. And to the best of my knowledge every one of those are already slated for discontinuation.

 

IDK about that. I was selling Hondas in the mid 80s when buyers were buying them while in transit from Japan or Marysville. Low line DXs sat around a while but buyers wanted LX or LXi higher line models.

Context means something. GM's T-car which was the Chevette in the Chevy line has to be compared to other subcompacts of the time. Honda and Toyota were building reputations in the 1970s on virtually unkillable engines but corrosion in body panels and premature interior material destruction from UV were large problems in the 70s and into the 80s for Asian imports. GM worked very hard on corrosion resistance in the T car platform because of all the corrosion problems with the Vega. Those small cars wouldn't have been in domestic line-ups in 1977 at all but for the 1973 OPEC oil embargo that overnight created high consumer demand for small cars that got relatively high mpg, at least compared to large domestic coupes and sedans. During 1975 to 1980 I worked for National Car Rental. NCR featured GM cars in fleet and bought huge numbers of Chevettes and they actually were more reliable and had less warranty issues than the other GM vehicles we had in fleet concurrently. Jeez, who remembers GM X-cars without a sour look on their face? The other subcompact rental customers were offered by NCR was the AMC Gremlin. That car was so bad nobody rented one twice given a choice, even choosing what we called the Shitvette.

 

of course, a lot of that is created by manufacturers who put new tech in base models and then later strip it out, leaving customers who have gotten used to it in a spot to have to decide whether to spend the extra money on a higher end model.
i'm seeing that now on the new equinox ev. the bolt had a package option for the low end model that included heated and cooled seats and heated steering, plus other things for $1,500., and now it is a $10,000. model upgrade to get those.

 

Chevy/GM pickups now have a tailgate-within-a-tailgate. I take this as a tacit admission that they're selling twice as much truck as they ought to be.

I recently rented a 2023 Ford Escape (coming soon to vent thread) and to my horror it's got a power-assisted liftgate. Their small SUV now needs a powered liftgate? Once again I have to see this as an admission by the designers that it is fundamentally too big- it's just too much car.

 

It's probably litigation driven. Some very weak person eggshell plaintiff hurt themselves raising it. Our Pacifica 3rd row seats were easily pulled up, but 4 years later? Now they are motor driven.
.

 

Our used market is still crazy. 5 year old corollas are 20k. New corollas are 28k. Add a warranty, or get a cpo corolla and you're pushing 24k. An extra 4k plus tax gets you a new new car.

It just doesn't make sense to go used here. Even non Toyo brands are still overpriced.

It's just wild the used car prices now. I think, with higher rates and high prices, manufacturers are going to have to offer more lower trims, and expectations will readjust. Or, alternatively, more small cars with features vs large cars with features will sell more.

On the example of the mirage I think they'll sell better over the next little while. Maybe the Prius C comes back to NA, the Honda fit, yaris etc. smaller, cheaper cars that aren't worth selling at low volumes here. But if demand grows...


And on the topic of features. I like the touch unlock on the driver side of my prime. But I mostly use the fob anyway to get my kids into the backseat. I also don't see the point of a power liftgate. I never needed it before, don't know. Ventilated seats? Cool I guess but not needed.

Power seat adjustment in the front? Nice to have feature since wife and I share a car. But we're similar in overall height, we don't change the seat position much if at all. So it wasn't necessary and I didn't opt for the trim with it.

So so many people want leather seats. But... Why? They're worse for heat and cold, take more maintenance to keep nice and not cracking etc. a tear in a fabric seat needs only needle and thread. You need a small Bissell if it gets dirty, sure. But... Such a small inconvenience to save thousands of dollars.

But if those thousands only cost $100 to finance over 5 years....

Maybe it's different in the US but in Canada households are highly indebted. We never deleveraged after 2008. It's worse here than ever. So when I point out rates it's because it's obviously an issue here.

 

You can buck the trend.

 

it's bad here too. no matter how much the fed works to slow down the economy, people keep racking up credit card debt.
we should be in recession, but instead, we're in some strange other worldly place...

the aftermarket business for power lift gates tells me everything i need to know about peoples desire for bells and whistles

 

How about power folding mirrors, presumably for every blessed time you shut down the car. There's someone here installing those in his gen 5, at a not insignificant time/money investment. I can't remember the last time I've needed to fold ours. Even on the close quarters of ferries, we've usually enough elbow room to make it "optional".

 

i've considered them every time i pull into my garage and scrape the right mirror, but it would have to have a switch so i could control it.