Jurgis, I think the effects of the Japan quake and Thai floods are indeed rolling off but it's hard to explain the shortage of Hyundai (at least certain models) with that. I suppose supply exceeds demand for these vehicles, because they are good values. I actually found sufficient supply with many (but not all Japanese models), for example there are plenty of Civics around but after testing them I came to the conclusion that the Hyundai Elantra is better in it's class.
Toyota's for the most part look very stale, almost as if their product development department has slept for ma couple of years (or worked on fixing their quality problems). To some extend, that even applies to Honda.
I always bought used in the past ( sold and bought 2 cars over craigslist) but there is so little supply right now, that I feel there are no good deals to be had, so I think I might as well buy new.
As for Euro versus US sales model, I know right now that car discounts in Germany are easily 15% off from MSRP, which far exceeds what you can get in the US right now. I vastly prefer the European model - driving exactly the same car is not as important to me than buying exactly the car with the features that I want.
As for body style, I consider the Sedan style impractical (of course I grew up in Europe so I am biased) and so do most Europeans. With a hatchback of wagon style car, you have many more possibilities to reconfigure the existing space, that just don't exist with a sedan style car. Of course the US has trucks for this kind of stuff but their mileage is poor and they are impossible to park in tight space so they don't work in cities at all.
I think the station wagon is the most practical car and I wish there were more choices available (the Jetta Wagon is pretty good imo).
It looks like the near term prospects for the US car industry is quite good - there really is pent up demand out there, especially for fuel efficient vehicles. I think trucks and truck based SUV are in LT decline, so the industry has to learn how to make money from smaller vehicles. Right now, it looks like they found a way to do that. |
