Amidst all the cheating scandal, Volkswagen Group is en route to take pole position and may go on to be the world’s biggest-selling automaker for the year 2016! Thanks to GM’s success with retail sales during a month when most of its competitors struggled mightily, its retail market share jumped 160 basis points to 18.1{c0ab263b3175d981033b17d6eec654a369e659a5af23b80a9510e95dedf16ccb}, the largest of any competitor. Over 20 years, American automakers focused on producing inefficient SUVs and pickup trucks. The responsibility for building cars that pollute less rests with the automakers. The president-elect also said he would build a wall with Mexico and renegotiate the terms of the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta), which includes Mexico.
This is to broaden GM’s market at the same time be a leader in their respective segments. The automaker said the vehicle is engineered to offer more fun, utility, freedom, capability, as well as the potential for exceptional fuel economy and interior flexibility without compromising affordability. The same unions that have shackled the auto makers from re-tooling, buying robotic assembly systems or making a profit, and these unions have prevented the efficiency needed for US Automakers to sell the types of cars American’s want. With the overhauling of market strategies, everyone is more able to offer suggestions and question company strategy.
The healthy — or perhaps unhealthy — assumption in the industry is that significantly higher EV demand will materialize in the future, making electric cars into something other than a compliance effort (automakers building EVs to satisfy government requirements rather than to capture consumer spending).
Volkswagen was on pace to usurp Toyota’s title in June, but the German automaker came under fire late in 2015 after the discovery that some 11 million diesel vehicles were equipped with software to manipulate emissions levels. Bailing out the US Automakers will only lead foreign nations to bail out their automakers. These cars are already marked down when compared to their bigger counterparts and save drivers more at the pump, but patient consumers who wait for them to hit the used car market may be able to save even further. The first Honda, a Civic, was introduced to the North American market in 1971 and was soon followed by the Accord as well as the Prelude. New models can be built on Malaysian assembly lines, cars that one day could be destined for the profitable US market.
That means two things have to happen: a major government, such as China’s, will have to require greatly increased EV sales; or gas prices will have to rise to the Moon, well past the $4-a-gallon level they hit in the US after the financial crisis, before the oil market tanked last year.