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In general, American cars are too large to sell in most of Europe. In a lot of places, you'd never be able to park it.
Ford and GM (Opel) have about 15% market share but that's with European cars that largely look nothing like the giant cars sold in the US. About the only time I ever see American cars is at ski resorts where you'll see Jeeps and the occasional Denali/Escalade.
I owned VW GTIs for 15 years. When I'm in Europe, a Golf looks like a large car when you're walking down the street seeing mostly micro cars.
Well Lukas its pretty clear that Germans really like German cars.
As far as I know, there is a difference in the system of car dealers between the U.S. and Germany. In Germany new cars are normally sold by authorized car dealers, who are bonded to one car brand. Most car dealers are independent businesses, but they are bonded to one manufacturer. You can't buy a new Toyota at a Mercedes Benz car dealer. The number of VW, Mercedes, BMW, Ford or Opel car dealers is much higher than the number of car dealers of foreign brands. And most people normally stick to their car dealer, because the car is normally also repaired by this authorized car dealer / repair shop. I think it's not necessarily a good thing, because this system hampers the competition. It would be easier for the customers to compare prices if a car dealer would sell new cars from several different manufacturers.
But I'm not sure whether this is correct, my knowledge about this is very limited.
Two or three decades ago the market share of Japanese cars in Germany was about 15%, now it's less than 10%. I think they have lost market share to Hyundai and Kia. In the past the market share of Opel and Ford was significant higher than the market share of Mercedes, BMW or Audi. Opels market share was above 15%. Through quality issues in the 90s, they have lost their reputation for being reliable.
11. Mitsubishi - 3.8%
12. Peugeot - 3.7%
13. Kia - 3.1%
14. Tesla - 2.7%
15. Subaru - 2.5%
16. Opel - 2.2% - I think the new Ampera-e EV (Bolt in the US) will increase their market share
17. Suzuki - 2.0%
18. Renault - 1.8%
19. Hyundai - 1.6%
20. Honda - 1.4%
Ford and GM (Opel) have about 15% market share but that's with European cars that largely look nothing like the giant cars sold in the US. About the only time I ever see American cars is at ski resorts where you'll see Jeeps and the occasional Denali/Escalade.
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I have seen a late model Ford Bronco on the narrow streets of Paris on a Sunday morning. It seemed wildly out of context, and if I'd been fresh off the plane, I would have found myself wondering if that kind of hallucination was a side effect of jet lag.
In general, American cars are too large to sell in most of Europe. In a lot of places, you'd never be able to park it.
Ford and GM (Opel) have about 15% market share but that's with European cars that largely look nothing like the giant cars sold in the US. About the only time I ever see American cars is at ski resorts where you'll see Jeeps and the occasional Denali/Escalade.
I owned VW GTIs for 15 years. When I'm in Europe, a Golf looks like a large car when you're walking down the street seeing mostly micro cars.
Interesting that Ford has just about the same lineup between the US and Europe. Key differences are:
Taurus, Flex, Explorer, F Series are North America only, B Max, Ka, EcoSport, Galaxy are Euro only.
Otherwise, they offer these on both sides on the ocean:
Fiesta, Focus, Kuga/Escape, Mondea/Fusion, Mustang, Edge, S Max/C Max
Well, Ford sold there is not Ford sold here. Those are European spec and make cars.
Same goes for European cars. They are not the same cars sold here. You can import one made in say France, but high chance is it will never leave port or your property, as it may not be cleared for road use.
To be fair, when we say that America can’t get a great European car (let’s just use the stunning Citroën C6 as an example), we mean that we can’t get it at all. There is a ban on importing any foreign vehicle that was built within the last 25 years unless you agree to basically not drive it.
There have been a lot of chicanery done to prevent very competitive European cars from infringing onto The Big Three market. They are castrated. Find any data on say European cars mpg. Vans doing over 60mpg?
Then Japanese have to compete against European cars too. Speaking of Japanese, do you actually know Toyota has Eastern Europe - read Russia - spec cars? Them being a bridge between regular Toyota and Lexus?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but European buyer has very different requirements from US buyer. US buyer practically lives in car. European buyer walks or uses public transportation. Drives once a week maybe. What use is say turbo charged Challenger in the streets of any given European city, with its narrow twisted streets and where small turboed cars do so much better? Europe is not Texas or Florida, you know.
the european market is more restrictive and protective and europeans are much moire nationalistic than americans when it comes to products.there is no way the french are going to make a car more reliable than toyota or honda they cant even make cars as good as ours.
as far as the failure of european cars in our market the answer is simple , they export cars that just dont fit the america mindset,american dont like toys cars like the smart fourtwo or the latest fiat.in europe they like small cars because cities were built before there were cars so the streets are small american cities are design for the car. also european cars are not very reliable, in europe a person may drive 10 miles to work every day in america we may 60 miles to work .and dont forget all the bad roads and road salt in winter.
to be successful ,which europeans dont understand, they have to study the market and design products that fir that market,something the japanese are very good at .
the european market is more restrictive and protective and europeans are much moire nationalistic than americans when it comes to products.there is no way the french are going to make a car more reliable than toyota or honda they cant even make cars as good as ours.
as far as the failure of european cars in our market the answer is simple , they export cars that just dont fit the america mindset,american dont like toys cars like the smart fourtwo or the latest fiat.in europe they like small cars because cities were built before there were cars so the streets are small american cities are design for the car. also european cars are not very reliable, in europe a person may drive 10 miles to work every day in america we may 60 miles to work .and dont forget all the bad roads and road salt in winter.
to be successful ,which europeans dont understand, they have to study the market and design products that fir that market,something the japanese are very good at .
Yeah, sure, no bad roads and salt in Europe,lol.
Btw, last year bmw outsold lexus in US (and most likely in the years before). And the 3 series (to my disappointment) has grown to the size of a luxury yacht
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