How far have we come in 50 years of automotive safety? When I think of older cars I think of tons of steel, when I think of today’s cars I think of cheap plastic. Steel safe, plastic not so safe. The insurance institute tells a different story.
The numbers weren’t expected to be good and they lived up to expectations. Take Chrysler out of the mix and the big 3 don’t look that bad compared to their foreign competition.
GM -31.4%
Ford -32.4%
Chrysler -53%
Toyota -36.7%
Honda -34.7%
Nissan -30.1%
Mercedes -32.1%
BMW -35.9%
See all the details at Autoblog.com
UPDATE The yearly numbers they are not pretty either unless you like red
Saw this via Jason’s tweet.
Is this the car of the future? Looks good if you can find a place to fuel up.
Click over to youtube and watch the High Quality version of this.
The U.S. automakers have become the butt jokes recently. People are blaming the big 3’s poor products as a cause for their peril. Regardless of what you think of American cars, this isn’t a U.S. car problem. This is an economic problem that hit all car makers hard. The lone year over year bright spot is Mini. I am pretty sure this is just several years of Nintendoesqe supply issues.
The these numbers are similar to September and October.
Anyone tried to buy a new car lately? I heard from one person that said the dealer wasn’t dealing and another that said the salesmen were more interested in the pizza that was delivered than helping them buy a car. Both of these people went to the dealer to buy a car and walked out without one.
The funny thing is I thought about buying a new car today. I saw a sweet deal on a 2008 Suburban 13K off sticker. Then I came to my senses. Probably not the time to buy a car unless you have to. If the Suburban deals are still around in the spring when my minvan lease is up it will be hard to pass up. The difference between a minivan and a suburban isn’t as far apart as people think when you drive less than 12K miles per year. In some parts of the country SUV’s still make sense. A family of 5 plus a dog and an occasional boat to tow. There still is a market in the midwest, especially this time of year. These were the vehicles that helped the big 3 survive while dragging along thousands of workers paid not to work. Will the U.S. auto makers survive? Who knows. Here’s General Motors (pdf) plan what do you think?
Here are the highlights. See Autoblog for the full list.
General Motors -41.3%
Ford -30.6%
Chrysler -47%
Toyota -33.9%
Honda -31.6%
Nissan -42.2%
BMW -26.8%
Here is an amusing ad from Renault.
UPDATE The video auto played and that Annoys me so click the link to play.
This is impressive, but the same guys parallel parking is more impressive (also in the video)
Mini is almost the only company selling cars these days. Here is an interesting ad that is starting to generate some buzz 