Fuel Economy NOT the U.S. Automakers problem

•Small cars

•Economy cars

•"Green" cars

•High safety cars

• Cars that are innovative in their substance, rather than their sheet metal.

Fark if I know.

 

So what percentage of the US market are "green" cars? about 1.4%?

 

the "recent decline" well, that would imply that one bad year is the reason the big 3 are on the verge of bankruptcy. this is the first year Toyota had a decline (honda had a bad year a few years back) in decades.

but then again, they are not near bankruptcy.... fact is, other car manufacturers established a reputation of building smaller, high quality efficient vehicles, the big 3 were pretty much slapped in the face FOR YEARS before they grudgingly changed part of their product line to address this fast growing segment.

well they did it decades too late and although its been proven that the quality difference between manufacturers today is so small as to be nearly non-existent, there is a mindset in the American Consumer that is not going to be changed.

 

Where is this data? I've found out that "Quality" can be seen as either "Initial Quality" or "Long Term Reliability". I am very interested to see if the "quality" improvements in the Detroit cars is the former or later.

 

JD Power Initial Quality (First 3 months)


The best brand has .87 problems per car.
The average brand has 1.18 problems per car.
The worst brand has 1.67 problems per car.
The difference from best to worst is less than 1 problem. All modern cars are good, some are slightly better than others.



JD Power Dependability (3 years)

The best brand has 1.2 problems per vehicle
The average brand has 2.06 problems per vehicle
The worst brand has 3.44 problems per vehicle
Basically +/- one problem per from best to worse.

Toyota is the best Japanese company with an average of 1.74 problems per vehicle. (Lexus, Toyota, Scion)
Ford is the best American company with an average of 1.73 problems per vehicle. (Lincoln, Ford, Mercury)

5 problems that appear on in the top 10 for initial quality and dependability:

• Excessive wind noise
• Noisy brakes
• Vehicle pulling to the left or right
• Issues with the instrument panel/dashboard
• Excessive window fogging

When these are all the customer can come up with to complain about you are doing pretty good.

 

Thanks greatly.

 

Don't kid yourself. JD power knows what side of the bread their butter is on. The same graph, made up from Consumer reports show WAY lower quality results from the get go ... and although the likes of GM have made some improvements, they still have a ways to go to be on par w/ some of the asian manufacturers. Equally creepy is that asian manufacturers that also build here in the U.S. find lower quality in the same models than the model built overseas.

Oh please . . . you lost all credibility back when you posted another thread about how Toyota needs to take some of the blame for Nickel mining is Sudbury ... when the mine had been cleaned up well over a decade before we were running around in the Prius. When you get your credibility back, please return with the model GM makes on par with the Gen II or III Prius' mpg, features and roominess.

 

Indeed. Over INCO's history, which goes back over 100 years

Vale Inco -

the vast, vast majority of its output was to feed AMERICAN demand. Currently, Toyota as a corporation purchases about 1% of Vale/Inco's entire output

Nickel isn't just used in batteries. Actually that represents a teeny amount of global nickel demand

Vale Inco - About Nickel

According to Vale/Inco, 68% of global nickel demand is to meet the production of stainless steel

I only wish the hybrid bashers would use enough of a brain cell to actually look this s*** up, at the source no less