Category: Automobile Cool News

The 2020 Ford Transit van has become the ubiquitous delivery vehicle across America. AutoPacific was given the opportunity to drive one for a week. Here is a brief review of this outstanding commercial vehicle.

The reveal of the 2021 Ford Mustang Mach E shows that Ford is finally serious about entering the electric vehicle space. They have chosen to introduce an electric crossover SUV with the styling DNA of the Ford Mustang pony car. The performance specifications and price positioning of the vehicle appear to be spot on. At first, the Mach E will be eligible for the federal $7,500 tax credit for electric vehicles. It appears that Ford has not missed a trick with its new electric XSUV.

Mitsubishi is rebulding in the USA with a new dealer look, additional dealers covering 90% of the market, relocating its headquarters from Cypress, CA to Nashville, TN and freshening its products. Major changes all.

To increase brand image and customer satisfaction, Mitsubishi is rolling out a dealer visual identity program. The prototype store is Autoplex Mitsubishi in Lewisville Texas.

Over the past decades, the American auto industry has “atomized” with more and more new car and light truck models being added to the lineups each year.  The reason for this rapid addition of nameplates – atomization – has been an attempt by auto designers and marketers to provide products targeted to much more finely defined product niches.  Consumers demand more and more focused products and today’s automotive consumer research can identify exactly what those consumers want.  Current product development techniques allow vehicles to be developed more quickly and efficiently than in the past.  So, why not develop a vehicle targeted at each well-defined buyer group?

17-million Sales Years Not Sustainable

During the ‘90s, a good year was 15 million car and light truck sales.  By early in the first decade of the 2000s, the industry was expecting 17 million units per year.  Companies began adding more and more nameplates to take advantage of these [...]

 Atomization Continues Unabated  The American car and light truck market is undergoing atomization.  There are 313 car and truck nameplates on sale today in the United States.  By 2022 – just five years in the future – there are going to be 377.  A nameplate is a vehicle name like Ford Explorer, Renge Rover Evoque or Toyota Camry.

Car to Truck Shift Permanent  Manufacturers are adding new products to more tightly appeal to customers with more diverse tastes.  Buyers have shifted to crossover sport utility vehicles (XSUVs) in droves.  Automakers are adding more XSUVs to satisfy every whim.  Trucks began outselling cars in 2001, but since 2012 when cars last had 50% of the [...]

New car and light truck owners responding to AutoPacific‘s annual New Vehicle Satisfaction Survey, provide the price they paid for their vehicle.  That price is what the buyer pays the dealer.  A vehicle that is a strong revenue generator is golden to the health of a brand.  Of course the revenue is split into many smaller and smaller pieces.  Simplistically, the dealer buys the vehicle from the manufacturer and sells it at a profit.  And that is about as complicated as we are going to get, because that is not the story we are chasing.

We want to know which vehicles generate the most revenue.  This is analysis is rough.  We use the median price paid from AutoPacific’s research and multiply that times the numbers of vehicles sold in 2016.  Each of the top ten vehicles generated $10 billion or more of revenue.

F-Series Top Revenue Generator  The top revenue generator was the Ford F-Series.  [...]

The autonomous car puts a challenge on screenwriters to cope with the impact of more technologically advanced vehicles. Will the bad guys find ways to win? Or will autonomy yield a crime free utopia where the bad guys cannot escape using "modern" transportation and smart streets?

Every two months, AutoPacific surveys drivers to determine the fuel price impact on their lives, their driving styles and their consideration for vehicle types in the future.  The fuel price impact today is dramatically different from the surprise price spike to $4.15 per gallon in June 2008.  Drivers reacted dramatically.  They abandoned large SUVs and bought high fuel economy small cars and hybrids instead.  Hybrid consideration peaked at 29% in September 2008.

Drivers took huge financial losses getting rid of their gas guzzlers, but they quickly rued that decision.  By December 2008 the price of gasoline had dropped to $1.67 per gallon.  (The value of $1.67 in 2008 is $1.94 in today’s dollars).  This began a roller coaster ride of gas prices.  By January 2011, gas prices had risen to over $3 per gallon and stayed there until December 2014.  Today, the national price of a gallon of gasoline is about $2.50.

American Driver Know [...]

There are many surveys of vehicle owner satisfaction each year. This article compares the results from the newly released Consumer Reports Owner Satisfaction Survey with the results of AutoPacific's Vehicle Satisfaction Research