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Toyota and other cars which sell big come to you, they bring you the demo cars for you try, then they do all of your paperwork and insurance. The popular companies do things totally different from how we do.
I really don't think it's a big deal, and Japanese car buyers don't have an interest in what we have to sell.
Why are we worry about a market who doesn't want what we sell, and not about tariffs that are causing job layoffs in our own car industry? Tariffs on steel that will drive up costs to our own consumers?
Just watch S Koreas purchasing of our cars, if it doesn't change after the change in the trade agreement there, it would probably go the same in Japan.
I don't get it either. I have been following this debate since the 1980s. It never changes, Japan has to start buying American cars, but they don't want them. The only thing that could possibly change the situation is if Americans start manufacturing high quality small subcompact cars for the Japanese market and selling them at ridiculously low prices, to gain market share. Even then it would be a hard sell, and might fail. American cars are just never going to be big in Japan, no matter how much people complain about it. But I'm sure the complaining about it will still be going on in another 30 years.
All Ford and GM is asking for is a chance to do just that.
I laugh about the comments of "the steering wheel needs to be on the left" and all of that. No kidding, really? Like they don't know that????? And oh, by the way, they make right-hand drive cars for several other countries so this is nothing new.
Then. Why. Don't. / Haven't. They. ????
Never saw a right-hand drive American car in Japan.
But even if they did make them for there I seriously doubt they would sell many, for the reasons I already gave.
They are simply not well-regarded there and they won't buy products lesser than their own. Why would they? That one guy in a million who wears cowboy boots and listens to Country might, and I've known a few of those, or die-hard microbus owners, or surfers with Taurus station wagons, etc., but they are lonely outliers. The rest drive Merc wagons. The mass public can't afford either so will continue to buy their own reliable comfort brands.
Even if some models of some US makers might , just might, get close to on par with the cars they build there, but would surely fall short on service, parts, maintenance, quality, reliability, and appeal. I like the Manolos analogy.
You can level whatever trade playing fields that may or may not exist for US makers that may or may not exist for European makers, and you will still have to somehow magically generate interest and demand, and it just isn't there en masse and reasonably safe to say it never will be. You can build the trough there but them horses ain't gonna drink from it no matter how much you want them to. I truly wish that was not the case but it is what it is.
And don't even think about something like an F-150, they have no interest, regard, use, or space for those kinds of things there.
Still, Porsches and Mercs everywhere there..... That is where the comparatively tiny foreign market segment thrives.
It appears that you and a couple of others here have some very unrealistic aspirations for that market. You're beating your hard heads against an even harder wall. In the end I'm just doing a poor job of echoing what others have already said.
BTW I like some of your posts in other subforums.
Last edited by Repatriot; 10-09-2018 at 07:48 PM..
Yea we can't compete. Heck we got a upstart company selling more electric cars than Toyota sells Corolas and only a few hundred less than Honda Civics and that's in the USA.
Never saw a right-hand drive American car in Japan.
But even if they did make them for there I seriously doubt they would sell many, for the reasons I already gave.
They are simply not well-regarded there and they won't buy products lesser than their own. Why would they? That one guy in a million who wears cowboy boots and listens to Country might, and I've known a few of those, or die-hard microbus owners, or surfers with Taurus station wagons, etc., but they are lonely outliers. The rest drive Merc wagons. The mass public can't afford either so will continue to buy their own reliable comfort brands.
Even if some models of some US makers might , just might, get close to on par with the cars they build there, but would surely fall short on service, parts, maintenance, quality, reliability, and appeal. I like the Manolos analogy.
You can level whatever trade playing fields that may or may not exist for US makers that may or may not exist for European makers, and you will still have to somehow magically generate interest and demand, and it just isn't there en masse and reasonably safe to say it never will be. You can build the trough there but them horses ain't gonna drink from it no matter how much you want them to. I truly wish that was not the case but it is what it is.
And don't even think about something like an F-150, they have no interest, regard, use, or space for those kinds of things there.
Still, Porches and Mercs everywhere there..... That is where the comparatively tiny foreign market segment thrives.
It appears that you and a couple of others here have some very unrealistic aspirations for that market. You're beating your hard heads against an even harder wall. In the end I'm just doing a poor job of echoing what others have already said.
BTW I like some of your posts in other subforums.
People in the US used to think Hyundai's were cheap junk. Now they are respected - things change.
Part of that was because initially they were importing the wrong spec cars from overseas to the US and trying to sell them. (Basically the same thing Ford tried to do in Japan but in reverse.) After building their own plant in the US and making changes to the design and content offered, which you can do when you have a dedicated plant for a specific country, then the demand for their cars increased and now they are a respected automaker.
All Ford and GM is asking is for a chance to do the same thing. They are currently not allowed to build a plant in Korea or Japan in the same manner their "home teams" are allowed.
Whether anyone thinks they can do it is another matter altogether. We could argue that all day long - but can any of you actually tell me you think it's unreasonable to ask Korea, Japan and China to give our companies the same access to their countries as we have given to theirs?
Yea we can't compete. Heck we got a upstart company selling more electric cars than Toyota sells Corolas and only a few hundred less than Honda Civics and that's in the USA.
Good point. I could actually see Teslas selling in Japan. Not a lot, but some. If they beat the local competition to it and they do RHD PDQ.
However electric is not popular in Japan due to things like natural disasters or other reasons why electricity could become unavailable, and have more comfort in fossil fuels. Then there is the issue of charging stations...
Never saw a right-hand drive American car in Japan.
But even if they did make them for there I seriously doubt they would sell many, for the reasons I already gave.
They are simply not well-regarded there and they won't buy products lesser than their own. Why would they? That one guy in a million who wears cowboy boots and listens to Country might, and I've known a few of those, or die-hard microbus owners, or surfers with Taurus station wagons, etc., but they are lonely outliers. The rest drive Merc wagons. The mass public can't afford either so will continue to buy their own reliable comfort brands.
Even if some models of some US makers might , just might, get close to on par with the cars they build there, but would surely fall short on service, parts, maintenance, quality, reliability, and appeal. I like the Manolos analogy.
You can level whatever trade playing fields that may or may not exist for US makers that may or may not exist for European makers, and you will still have to somehow magically generate interest and demand, and it just isn't there en masse and reasonably safe to say it never will be. You can build the trough there but them horses ain't gonna drink from it no matter how much you want them to. I truly wish that was not the case but it is what it is.
And don't even think about something like an F-150, they have no interest, regard, use, or space for those kinds of things there.
Still, Porsches and Mercs everywhere there..... That is where the comparatively tiny foreign market segment thrives.
It appears that you and a couple of others here have some very unrealistic aspirations for that market. You're beating your hard heads against an even harder wall. In the end I'm just doing a poor job of echoing what others have already said.
BTW I like some of your posts in other subforums.
By the way, the notion that these German cars are "everywhere" is just not accurate.
Mercedes market share is 1.3%. I would not consider that to be an astounding success. That is less than half of what they have in the US. VW's market share in Japan is 1/3 of what it is in the US. You get the idea...
Good point. I could actually see Teslas selling in Japan. Not a lot, but some. If they beat the local competition to it and they do RHD PDQ.
However electric is not popular in Japan due to things like natural disasters or other reasons why electricity could become unavailable, and have more comfort in fossil fuels. Then there is the issue of charging stations...
Location: San Ramon, Seattle, Anchorage, Reykjavik
2,254 posts, read 2,738,942 times
Reputation: 3203
Quote:
Originally Posted by iamweasel
I get that, the point is Ford and GM want to build plants in Korea and Japan (amongst others) to build the cars people will buy in those local markets - but they can't due to all the trade barriers/restrictions/taxes.
Remove the barriers - let them in. Then we will see if they can make cars that will sell or not.
I'm starting to wonder if I'm talking to a bot. Did you not read the posting of mine that you responded to? GM already has plants in South Korea - GM Korea. And they built millions of cars per year, some of which they import into Europe and the USA.
Your 'barriers' nonsense is getting old...
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