How times have changed for the U.S. auto consumer! Seems like only yesterday that Hitler killed himself, the Russian tanks rolled into Berlin, we dropped a couple of atomic bombs on a highly-populated Pacific archipelago and completely incinerated and/or irradiated 100,000 civilians going about their daily lives, and then promptly turned around and funded the rebuilding of the German and Japanese economies. With funding and no defense expenditures or military development needs to distract them, both economies roared past those of just about every other nation except America. Germany soon dominated the low end of the U.S. car market with their "people's car", or Volkswagen (Wired's writeup on a Beetle anniversary spurred my thoughts for this post), only to be replaced in the 1970's by entrants from Japan (particularly Honda and Toyota).
Then, both the German and Japaneses auto manufacturers gained a toehold on U.S. soil by being cheap and simple, with the added benefits of reliability and fuel efficiency offered by the Japanese. Today, German autos are known for their performance, expensiveness, and UNreliability, while the Japanese are known for their comfort, unmatched reliability (still), and fuel efficiency. Neither country continues to be known for the affordability of their vehicles, however. So who's it going to be? America is actually building pretty cheap cars these days in terms of cost and quality, but consumers have ruled in favor of reliability and performance, leaving American car makers without a meaningful slice of hearts and minds to dominate.
35 years ago, a Japan barely 30 years removed from the smoking ruins of their country and their industrial economy managed to come up with something that, even when faced with high import tariffs from the U.S., managed to dominate an important (and previously unknown) segment of the American auto market. Can American automakers come up with a similar feat, or better yet, create their own previously unknown yet import segment to dominate? Or will they continue to be pushed to the fringes, such as full-size pickup trucks and throwback nostalgic car designs that are designed to appeal to the good ol' day longings of a population demographic that is getting older and older? Come to think of it, Toyota is even beating them to the creation of THAT market segment (aging baby boomers) with their Scion xB, a boxy contraption initially designed to appeal to youngsters, but that has such incredibly low ground clearance that it's actually also very appealing to elderly folks who appreciate not having to step up into their vehicle, while also giving the vehicle much more interior vertical space! Could we be looking at the evolution of the next "People's Car" right before our very eyes (the xB has a low price tag to boot, though not the absolute rock-bottom bare-bones pricing that previous P.C. incarnations boasted)? Only time will tell.
Comments