Why foreign automakers dominate the sedan market
Posted by besselfunctions@reddit | cars | View on Reddit | 141 comments
Posted by besselfunctions@reddit | cars | View on Reddit | 141 comments
Spicywolff@reddit
“The biggest American automakers all but abandoned sedans and coupes in recent years as they rushed to compete in the pickup truck and SUV markets”
Yah kinda easy to dominate sedan sells when the opposition doesn’t even exist. A win by default vs Americans, with Japanese and Korean fighting for lower mid prices. Germans and higher spec Japanese for that higher price point.
DeviousMelons@reddit
Kinda like how the Miata dominates the low cost lightweight sports car market by being the only one.
Spicywolff@reddit
Yup, nobody sells what they sell. The closest competitor will be the 86 twin. But those might be on the same side of the menu, but they’re very different choices.
One is a top down British roadster style with no shits given to its small car nature. The twins give you more practical car, albeit more weight. You at least now get us usable, rear seat, seats for short people or a nice place to put your backpack and lunchbox.
benisnotapalindrome@reddit
And dogs. Toyobaru is for when you'd love a Miata but you want to bring your dog with.
Spicywolff@reddit
Didn’t think about that, yah a big plus. I also see it as more justified keep when you have a kid. Miata you’re SOL as there is no way to put a car seat. The twins at least have rear anchor points for a seat.
You can at least convince your wife to let you keep it because you can take a kid with you safely. Miata just not doing it.
el_senior@reddit
I drive a kid around in my Miata, now the second kid......they have to ride with my wife.
weristjonsnow@reddit
I miss the Honda s2000
AndrewCoja@reddit
What if Honda made an S3000 that was just another civic rebadge with worse performance?
Magnus_The_Totem_Cat@reddit
And it’s not a convertible and only comes with a cvt
ManufacturerBest2758@reddit
Don’t forget the series hybrid with a sport mode that’s slower than regular
ashzeppelin98@reddit
And also somehow strangely slower than a freaking Prius
el_senior@reddit
Please stop, I already threw up 7 times with the first comments, now I'm empty but still dry heaving.
dedboooo0@reddit
itll also make fake shifting noises in the cabin
Ancient_Persimmon@reddit
I wouldn't expect a 3.0L in any Civic platform vehicle.
AndrewCoja@reddit
The 3000 stands for the dealer mark-up.
cat_prophecy@reddit
If that's the case, then it's missing a 0.
trolllord45@reddit
No thank you
Spicywolff@reddit
Same, such a fun car.
Larcye@reddit
Only thing that really competes against it is really a motorcycle or something like the polaris Slingshot.
I've met people in all 3 who unironically where stuck between a miata, Motorcycle or Polaris Slingshot. And as someone who owns 6 motorcycles and has rented a Miata and a slingshot, I'd probably ignore the slingshot and have 6 motorcycles and a Miata If I had the garage space.
Sadly I'm out of garage space at this point.
04limited@reddit
Just goes to show there’s only so many buyers out there for each segment.
People like Miatas, but there’s not enough people who want Miata type cars for a company to design a new car from ground up.
Magnus_The_Totem_Cat@reddit
Credit Mazda for a brilliant strategy!
BahnMe@reddit
BRZ but about 5k higher msrp.
hi_im_bored13@reddit
Not even the japanese anymore, you really just have the ES
g-4-ces@reddit
Acura Integra
TunerJoe@reddit
Not a sedan
Arnas_Z@reddit
The hell you on about lol. The Integra is definitely a sedan.
hi_im_bored13@reddit
also not a higher price point
g-4-ces@reddit
As much as a ES
hi_im_bored13@reddit
What, the ES starts where the Integra ends, & $10k of that is for the hot-hatch type r experience, not because its a more premium package
g-4-ces@reddit
lol math is hard. Go check your car magazines again as we all know your that poster that “thinks they are always right”. 2025 Type S is $55k and are still available. 2026 Es350 can be had for $45k. That’s what you call overlapping pricing.
hi_im_bored13@reddit
> 2025 Type S is $55k and are still available
Are the majority of people buying M3s? One starts in the 30s & one in the 40s
> type R for this version of the Integra.
There is its called the Type-s same damn thing they switched up a letter
g-4-ces@reddit
Yeah I said type s in my post above. Back to school for you
DodgerBlueRobert1@reddit
People might call it a hatchback, but in reality it's a liftback sedan. It's the same exact story with the Civic hatchback on which it's based upon. The angle of the hatch is far from being vertical. It's more horizontal, which is more or less what differentiates a liftback from a hatchback. In fact, the hatch angle of the current Integra and Civic "hatchbacks" have pretty much the same rear roofline angle as the Civic sedan. And just to add another car to the mix, the 2-door DC2 Integra, which was a liftback coupe, has nearly the same angle of the hatch as well.
Here are some side profile pictures of all 4 cars.
Current Integra
Current Civic hatchback
Current Civic sedan
DC2 Integra
Avedas@reddit
Also not Japanese
g-4-ces@reddit
I guess then to you the Ford Bronco Sport, Maverick, Chevy Silverado and BMW 3-series are Mexican and the Ford Mustang is Canadian.
Avedas@reddit
Less about where it's made but where it's available. The current Integra isn't designed or built or sold in Japan. It's completely made for the American market.
I wouldn't call a Telluride Korean either.
Spicywolff@reddit
For now Lexus has IS-ES-LX, Acura integra. Damn you’re, right even the Japanese are whittling down the luxury sedan. But their entry and mid has plenty of sedans still. Toyota has 6 if I recall, Honda 3 and then the Korean offerings… for now
Sucks because we have been a sedan family for a long time.
biggsteve81@reddit
I wonder if the Accord will get another generation or if Honda goes all in on the Civic.
Spicywolff@reddit
I got a feeling as long as the Camry exists. The accord will be there.. I just don’t see Honda giving up that market share without a fight.
hi_im_bored13@reddit
lx is an suv, is is a decade old platform, ls is dead, it's really just the es in the properly premium space, the integra is barely nicer than the civics inside & with a less refined drivetrain
i'm sure economy sedans will last for a while but in what the germans deal with it's just the germans, then everyone else
Stu__Pidasso@reddit
IS isn't dead, it's just going to turn EV or hybrid in the next gen. They only killed the IS500.
DodgerBlueRobert1@reddit
The fact that the IS is on a decade old platform is really neither here nor there though. The Camry is on a nearly decade old platform, and no one seems to have a problem with it.
hi_im_bored13@reddit
The hybrid system & everything around that platform has been refined enough where it's a step forward, & its competition has either died out or improved a similar degree (accord). not much money to throw around
Meanwhile the IS has the same sloppy transmission it launched with when the equivalent BMW has been generationally improved 2, almost 3 times, w/ one of the most renowned drivetrains in any car to date
Don't think thats the same case at all
DodgerBlueRobert1@reddit
The internals/running gear of the Camry might have improved from the previous gen to the new one, but it's still using the same TNGA-K that debuted 9 years ago. But I guess my point was, who cares how old the platforms are, when this was simply a discussion of which sedans still exist. The age of the platform shouldn't demerit a car any more or any less than a car that uses a new(er) platform.
hi_im_bored13@reddit
Sure, better to say the IS is a uncompetitive car regardless of its platform & the ES is the only japanese sedan that actually bothers to take a fight to the equivalent German
DodgerBlueRobert1@reddit
Fair enough. With the ES though, I really don't understand the new one's design, both inside and out.
Spicywolff@reddit
I typed LS, not sure why LX auto corrected. My bad for not noticing. Yeah Lexus is definitely not keeping up with the times on the sedans, but that’s kind of been their thing for a while. Integra is definitely overpriced for what you’re getting in my opinion. But it’s a great option if you want a sports sedan that isn’t German car expensive. Or German car unreliable.
Yeah, I think sedans will hold the fort longest on the economy side.
hi_im_bored13@reddit
The issue for me with the integra is that it doesn't really feel like a sports sedan in any trim but the Type-S, which is German car expensive
Like the manual a-spec is okay, its just that 1.5t has such horrific rev hang that its nothing like Acuras of old & I'd much rather have an Elantra N even if its less premium
Also, that 1.5t has been subject to a number of issues, if anything it's less reliable than the b48/b58 & the 2.0 in the Elantra N. I'd rather recommend the civic hybrid touring than the integra manual or not
Spicywolff@reddit
I can see where you’re coming from. I had one as a loaner for the dealership while they were working on mine. Of course, not the type ass and it did just feel like a Guzzy up Honda.
And that type ass yeah they’re up there in price, but at least you’re getting better reliability than Germans. I’m not had too much experience with the .1.5. But I have heard complaints about the compared to previous generation Acura and Honda products
accountforrealppl@reddit
The LS is dead (or this is the last year i think)
Spicywolff@reddit
Is there on the website for now, will it be there 2027 probably not
Seref15@reddit
They dominated well before the american manufacturers gave up the segment.
Your chicken and egg are backwards. Americans stopped making them because they already lost the battle against foreign manufacturers.
Spicywolff@reddit
American sedans were very successful in the domestic side for a very long time. If that was well earned or not is a different debate. The Americans pulled out of sedan markets when they realize that the imports were beating them at their own game. That their own consumers were tired of carrying a shit pile due to a domestic title.
Then you end up with them being able to make more profitable, SUVs, and pick ups which they’re more than happy to turn out.
June1994@reddit
This is just not true. Yeah, the Fusion and the Focus, and occasionally a couple Chevy sedans managed to be decently popular, but everybody knows that the best selling sedans were Toyota Camry, Toyota Corolla, Honda Accord, and Honda Civic. This was true for basically every year (and continues to be true).
Together those 4 models dominated the sedan market and American manufacturers never got close.
As for imports, what imports? Honda Accord is like the most American vehicle in the world with 90%+ of its supply chain here. THey haven't been "imports" since like 1990 if not earlier.
American manufacturers exited the sedan market because they lost and SUVs were more profitable anyway. But even then, everybody knows that the biggest cash cow for Ford and GMC are pickup trucks.
Spicywolff@reddit
You realize domestic auto makers have been making sedans for a very long time. Before the Corolla or the accord where even a car on the market.
Again “ American sedans were very successful in the domestic side for a very long time.” historically this is correct. It’s not until the import brands a.k.a. not domestic big 3, that the Americans started though actually have legitimate competition. Competition that wasn’t just a pissing match between themselves.
June1994@reddit
Completely irrelevant to the actual conversation. Nobody cares about what happened before 1970 when discussing Big 3s exit from the sedan market.
Spicywolff@reddit
It is relevant if you read the conversation beforehand. Their exit from markets is based on their resting on laurel’s from their golden days.
They were dominant, but then gave up because the American public wasn’t carrying them like they used to
June1994@reddit
I did read it and it is completely irrelevant. Japanese automakers completely dominated the mid-size and compact sedan market for the last 30 years, gobbling up all the profit and making it pointless for the Big 3 to continue a losing fight.
That's why they exited the market. Whatever happened in the 70s is completely irrelevant to this phenomena.
Spicywolff@reddit
Agree to disagree. Have a good one
The49GiantWarriors@reddit
So you're talking about the 1920s-1960s? Farmers were successful in professional basketball in that time period too, but that's not really relevant.
biggsteve81@reddit
Domestic sedans were also insanely popular in the 80s and early 90s. The original Ford Taurus was incredible, until they ruined it in 1996.
Spicywolff@reddit
My cousin had a Taurus unfortunately not the SHO. As a kid non-driver I enjoyed it. It was comfortable quiet and can fit a lot of of my sports gear. Way bigger than a 318i my dad had.
Spicywolff@reddit
It’s entirely relevant because it sets the frame that Americans could design sedan that Americans wanted to buy. But that only got them so far and when the 70s and 80s came around. they were clearly behind and since then have been catching up. Unsuccessfully mind you.
since then, they’ve not been able to make a value sedan that Americans want. Their only competitive option was grandpa comfort cars and even then. they’re losing big market share to the point that they’re killing off the sedan. This is proving that Americans just can’t make good sedans the way Japanese and Koreans are making them.
They used to make products we wanted, but those days are long behind, so they’ve switched gear to SUVs and pick ups which they can make profitably and sell well on a domestic market
cat_prophecy@reddit
Fusion, Focus, Taurus, LeSabre, Regal, Grand Am, Grand Prix, Alero, Intrigue, Aurora, Malibu, Cobalt, Cruz, Sunfire, Cavalier, Ion, 200, 300, Stratus, Avenger... that'ss all I can think of now.
All sold many hundreds of thousands of units before being shit-canned in favor of higher-margin trucks and SUVs.
June1994@reddit
Camry alone sells as many vehicles as the entire Ford sedan line-up. Ford canceled Fusion, Focus, and so on because it wasn't worth the development resources to continue fighting Toyota and Honda who completely dominated this part of the market.
Especially cars like Taurus. Full-size sedans barely sold post 08.
CartoonistAnnual4672@reddit
the ford fusion was outselling the honda accord in america when ford discontinued it
DodgerBlueRobert1@reddit
The Accord outsold the Fusion by 100,000 more units during the Fusion's last year.
kyonkun_denwa@reddit
It wasn't "easy", the opposition was backed into a corner because Honda and Toyota were just plain better at making reliable sedans, while Hyundai was able to make them cheaper and with more features.
You make it sound like the Americans just kind of chose to withdraw. The reality is they were out-competed. They were forced to sell their cars cheaper because they had a lousier reputation. Whether that was completely deserved is up for debate, but I know I'd probably rather have a Toyota Camry over a Chevy Malibu. The latter may not be a bad car but it critically didn't do anything better than the Camry.
PROfessorShred@reddit
Ford specifically had that catastrophic transmission failures in their automatic sedans and hatchbacks I'm convinced it was cheaper to just kill the line than to keep producing and have to implement any actual recall.
Spicywolff@reddit
But Americans did choose to withdraw. They did so by putting out Dookie products and expecting the domestic market to just keep eating it. Incompetence doesn’t excuse sales drop vs better competitors. And the easy choice is just don’t fight that market that’s lockdown. Lean into what you know and is profitable, a.k.a. SUVs and pickups.
You’re absolute right the imports were making better sedans, and the Americans just couldn’t keep up. Americans had a strong sedan market for quite a while in the automotive history. but around that 70s and 80s they kind of just shit the bed. And one of the imports came correct to market. The writing is kind of on the wall.
The K car platform gave American something affordable with some features. But it further emphasize the unreliable brand of domestic. And you’re right a Camry and a Malibu will do the same job. But I’d rather take the Toyota. Even if it might have less features.
RicardoMoyer@reddit
even if GM, Stellantis and Ford were making small cheap sedans i have a hard time imagining a world were they beat the K4, Corolla, or Civic purely in merit, maybe they’d undercut them
and before anyone laughs at me for praising the k4, go sit in one, my biggest criticism is the leather feeling plasticky
ChaosBerserker666@reddit
At least school bus grade leather lasts a long time
EfficientTourist7480@reddit
Iirc, one reason some companies make more trucks and suv is due to emissions requirements where heavier vehicles have more lenient requirements
Spicywolff@reddit
I’ve also heard that these SUV get an unfair emissions pass compared to smaller vehicle vehicles. Europeans seemed to not want to let their sedans die, and are keeping up with the emissions compliance.
lee1026@reddit
The EV world is even more SUV heavy than normal.
And getting an EV to pass emissions is pretty easy no matter what you do.
ManufacturerBest2758@reddit
The Germans all sell several models of combustion sedans and few “light trucks” in the US. The CAFE excuse is as close to bullshit as possible.
ManufacturerBest2758@reddit
Cadillac has two sedans
Trades46@reddit
Soon to be 1. The CT4 is being axed by end of this model year.
MobiusOne_ISAF@reddit
I can't imagine too many people are cross shopping a Camry with a CT5 or CT4, and they're definitely not looking at a CELESIQ.
ManufacturerBest2758@reddit
I can’t imagine people cross shopping Toyota and Cadillac at all, really. You know what I can imagine though? People cross shopping BMW, Mercedes, and Cadillac, because they’re all luxury brands with offerings at similar price points.
Spicywolff@reddit
For now, the way winds blowing, I don’t see them staying around for too long. at some point, the profitability will not be there anymore for them.
FMJoey325@reddit
By extension, the entirety of General Motors has two sedans. Kind of pitiful but they’re chasing the money. If you switch things around, US manufacturers dominate the body-on-frame SUV space.
CarsPlanesTrains@reddit
The literal only two sedans being made in the US, unless you count the 4-door Charger
RiftHunter4@reddit
Kia blatantly replaced Ford and Dodge econoboxes.
Amazingly, the build quality and reliability did not improve lol.
aprtur@reddit
How about "because we gave up trying to be profitable with a mainline sedan"....that's pretty much the sentiment that came directly from Farley with respect to Ford.
To wit:
From - Affordability concerns take center stage at Detroit Auto Show, which is linked in the site here (not sure why the original source is banned here, but Drive covered it with a link to the direct quote).
Spicywolff@reddit
Yup, the Americans had a strong sedan market for a pretty good run, but became a point that the imports were better value better made better performing… being the domestic big dogs only get you so far when you’re customers are kind of running out of “patriotism”
Being a domestic offer was just not enough for the American consumer at some point. And then exactly what you said. They just gave up on being profitable sedans and we’re more than happy to turn out SUV and truck trucks.
deleted_by_reddit@reddit
[removed]
AutoModerator@reddit
Unfortunately your comment has been removed because it contains a link to a delisted domain. This is almost always due to spam from the domain.
Please use a different source.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
Low-Umpire236@reddit
Domestics are foreign to me.
CJPrinter@reddit
Name a domestic sedan that’s not a Cadillac or Tesla…
JournalistExpress292@reddit
Name me one country in the world where SUVs aren’t popular
09Customx@reddit
Korea still loves their sedans
yetiflask@reddit
A "lot" of SUVs there. Even Seoul being a congested city has tons of them. Even more when you leave Seoul.
Even Tokyo has a decent amount of large SUVs, something I always find surprising.
5GCovidInjection@reddit
Isn’t that because the country relies heavily on height and weight restricted parking garages, and that makes SUVs impractical?
vw18t@reddit
Japan,Italy,France,Spain,Portugal…..
mgobla@reddit
Obvious lie. I am from europe, also anyone can google sales numbers or ask AI in seconds, why write something so obviously wrong...
In both France and Italy out of the top 20 best selling models (2025 whole year) 11 of them are SUVs and one is offered as a SUV trim that is the most popular trim.
RicardoMoyer@reddit
do you mean crossovers? when i think SUV i picture RAV4/CRV and larger, not a twingo on stilts
DodgerBlueRobert1@reddit
The terms crossover and SUV don't implicate size. They are simply types of vehicles. There are large crossovers and small SUV's. The RAV4 and CR-V are crossovers.
RicardoMoyer@reddit
I know that the RAV4 and CRV are crossovers, basically everything under a billion pounds is a crossover, manufacturers use universal platforms for everything but their largest off-road trucks and SUVs
I’m still gonna call the segment of the aforementioned vehicles “small SUVs” because they’re large as fuck
so don’t hmmm aktuallyyy 🤓🤓☝️ me
biggsteve81@reddit
A Camry is significantly larger than a RAV4; the RAV4 is actually shorter than a Corolla sedan.
RicardoMoyer@reddit
a corolla is 2cm longer than a rav4 while the rav4 is 10cm wider and 25cm taller with the hood height being the biggest (pun intended) issue here
so no i wont be calling them crossovers just because everyone else likes to drive 5ton SUVs to walmart or whatever
Ancient_Persimmon@reddit
A Jimny is a small SUV. Size doesn't play into the difference.
KSoMA@reddit
Other than kei cars, I probably saw more CUVs than sedans in Japan.
xarune@reddit
Sedans are sorta popular in Japan, but they absolutely love their boxes: vans of all size (Kei van to full size HiAces), hatchbacks, and small crossovers.
Most of the vehicles are built to maximize interior space for the footprint, which makes sense in a slow speed, short distance country short on space.
JournalistExpress292@reddit
Okay fair
Uniball38@reddit
Do you have numbers for any of those? Latest I’m seeing is that SUVs make up more than half of new car sales in EU
MajesticBread9147@reddit
In many countries, particularly where oil is scare or expensive, microvans and small sedans are very popular.
In Uzbekistan about 30% of cars sold last year was the Chevy Cobalt.
And quite famously the Toyota Prius is by far the most popular car in Mongolia because of expensive fuel prices in the country, and their ability to start in extremely cold conditions.
ebuc-eci@reddit
Dominating the sedan market in 2026 is like being the tallest dwarf in the circus.
TwelveTrains@reddit
I swear half of Americans have no idea wagons or hatchbacks exist.
R_V_Z@reddit
Because in the US they essentially don't, especially wagons. Hatches are a little bit more represented but even that category is inflated due to "liftbacks" being grouped in.
ChaosBerserker666@reddit
Yeah the BMW i4 and the Mustang are both liftbacks and there are tons of them.
nukelauncher95@reddit
The Mustang is not a liftback. It has a regular trunk.
Kongary@reddit
Historically related, a favorite business book read from years ago was "Car: A Drama of the American Workplace" by Mary Walton 1999. Lots of detail about what went right and wrong while bringing the 1996 Taurus to the marketplace.
Skim003@reddit
For Taurus was the best selling car in US in the 90s then their quality went down hill and lost our to foreign makes and eventually stop making them all together. That being said, these unibody cross-over cars are basically glorified wagons that sit higher, they have more in common with sedans than are to traditional SUV that are body on frame.
arpaterson@reddit
Im an automotive engineer and the unibody SUV thing is exactly right. The market is honestly kinda dumb. They consciously “want” one thing - an SUV/truck, but subconsciously want and need something else entirely (something something ego, id whatever), and it shows up in the engineering. A car would suit their needs far better, but you can’t sell them one. So the crossover class (and to be honest even the mid SUV and light truck increasingly) can be thought of as literally the engineering result of customers being terrible decision makers.
idkbruh653@reddit
The answer is simple: because American auto brands got greedy and played into so many people thinking they need to sit higher to see the road. Hyundai, Kia, Honda and Toyota show that you can have a mix of vehicles people actually want. GM and Ford killing sedans and small cars was dumb and short sighted.
biggsteve81@reddit
Honda really only has one car, the Civic, and it's sales are down 30% since 2019; the Accord sales are in the dumpster. These vehicles "people actually want" aren't selling so well, while the Chevy Trax is flying off the lots.
idkbruh653@reddit
Aren't selling so well? Honda is still selling well over 6 figures of both the Accord and Civic every year, showing that not everyone wants a SUV or crossover. Honda moved almost 150k Accords last year and the Civic outsold the HR-V with 239k sold. And those numbers don't include the hybrids. And so far this year Accord sales are up nearly 22%. So there's a market. They may not be selling the near half a million or so that they used to, but they're definitely selling.
Trax is selling that well because it's cheap and Chevy doesn't offer anything else that cheap; well there's the Trailblazer but the Trax is the better value.
bippos@reddit
Ford didn’t even kill it globally just in the USA but sell them in China and the middle east
CumOnEileen69420@reddit
It’s the chicken tax.
Domestic automakers could not compete with foreign competition in the sedan market. In the SUV and truck market, all foreign vehicles get hit with a tariff compared to the domestic equivalents. Combine the ease of competition and the price jump (along with market trends) and it’s a no brainer.
Why would a company dump more money to stay competitive in a market with slimmer margins when an alternate market offers larger margins and less intense competition for the same if not less investment (emissions breaks, safety breaks, etc.)?
FencyMcFenceFace@reddit
Chicken tax doesn't really do much here: there aren't any giant trucks being made elsewhere for import. Can't import something that doesn't exist.
Those automakers that are supposedly locked out are able to make their own production lines in the US to avoid that tax altogether. For whatever reason, they don't.
thetimechaser@reddit
Because American makers enjoy a completely protectionist market space where they have successfully lobbied themselves into a corner making it more feasible to produce large poor efficiency vehicles.
Our market will increasingly feel like the Soviet market while the rest of the world competes and advances.
FencyMcFenceFace@reddit
People want the large trucks and SUVs though.
Sedans sold reasonably well until oil prices cratered from shale, and then they also cratered. With cheap gas Americans overwhelmingly preferred giant trucks and SUVs.
No one was putting any gun to carbuyers heads to force them to buy those.
BahnMe@reddit
No, you see Mercedes, BMW, Toyota, Honda, etc building factories in the US and employing thousands of American workers because it’s much more profitable to do so. Hell even Porsche is considering building a US factory.
US automakers building factories in Mexico and Canada show what a horrible mistake NAFTA was for the blue collar American worker.
Fiveby21@reddit
If it was cheaper and more efficient to have these cars build elsewhere, than that was how it should've been. It's how the free market works.
g-4-ces@reddit
NAFTA killed the Midwest US
BahnMe@reddit
And most Redditors will fucking deny it and downvote it because political programming.
KSoMA@reddit
It's pretty unfortunate that we're no longer to have a serious or nuanced discussion about the t word in this country because the T man has completely poisoned the concept to pretty much every single American.
RichyJ_T1AR@reddit
Yeah, 40 years of neoliberalism led in part to the raging racist asshole who screamed the loudest against it but really just wants to replace it with an autocracy to get elected. Twice.
RicardoMoyer@reddit
This is a really complex topic, but i’d argue those jobs were leaving the USA one way or the other
talking about manufacturing costs, let’s forget about minimum wage for a bit, a factory worker in mexico will happily work 10 hours a day for 12k pesos(<600usd), how much does an American expect? 20 an hour? 25?, then there’s the supply chain issue, mexico has strong free trade agreements with large parts of the world so they can import raw resources for cheaper, then mexico can deport the finished cars to more countries for free, thanks to the same free trade agreements
now the cool part about all of this is that Mexico is not the only country with the above characteristics, but it’s the only one right next to the largest consumer market and when NAFTA/USMCA came they sure as hell boosted all of this, but IMO that only accelerated things not created the problem
if it’s any consolation, these shit wages don’t really benefit the Mexican society at large and i think these plants will probably come back to the US as highly automated assembly lines, even if just for political reasons
thetimechaser@reddit
Good points!
KSoMA@reddit
To play devil's advocate, who cares about dominating a shrinking market? A smaller market share in a much larger segment still likely means more raw sales overall. Plus every Ford Taurus on the assembly line was taking up space that a more profitable and in-demand Ford Explorer would have been instead.
OllieFromCairo@reddit
I live in a place where there are very few driveways, so it’s easy to eyeball why people are driving since they’re all parked on the street. I counted the other day and there are only about 10% fewer sedans than crossovers, with hatches, trucks and full-sized SUVs being less common.
Now, this is in a city, so there are definitely fewer pickups than in the suburbs and country, but it was fascinating to me to count so many sedans after being told repeatedly that no one wants them.
phxbimmer@reddit
Where I live (Sacramento, CA) there’s quite a sharp contrast between the city and the suburbs. In the city and its nearby residential areas, it’s still predominantly sedans and wagons with some small crossovers like the RAV4 sprinkled in. Once you go to the suburbs you start seeing massive 3-row SUV’s and large pickup trucks everywhere.
ChaosBerserker666@reddit
It’s the same here in Vancouver. Also in the city many EVs are driven but less so in the extreme burbs. Parking in the city is a bitch.
MajesticBread9147@reddit
Am I the only one who thinks the "foreign vs domestic" differentiator is kind of meaningless at this point? We don't make this distinction for other consumer goods. How often do we group Asus, Acer, Lenovo, and LG computers together compared to HP and Dell?
Also they completely ignore Tesla, which almost certainly has a bigger sedan market in America than Volkswagen. Lucid also makes sedans and you are seeing more and more of those as well.
kon---@reddit
Costs to acquire. Obviously.
And don't look now but, though SUV sales continue to dominate, sedan sales are on the comeback. Which man, thank fuck cause, I am so over the road being clogged with oversized, line of sight blocking SUVs. As well raised trucks that never leave pavement for that matter.
Minimum_Persimmon281@reddit
I feel like American automakers shifting to suvs isn’t necessarily a bad choice in the US market. They’ve never been particularly good at it, nor associated with them. GM used to outsource their small car developing to foreign branches of their company like the Chrysler of Germany (aka Opel) which wasn’t even successful in it’s home market. Ford relied on their European branch, which are okay, but not phenomenal. All for lower margins, more complex engineering needed and higher emissions regulations, etc. It was always going to be a losing game against the Japanese. And the sucs market has been steadily growing, anyway.
FMJoey325@reddit
It’s the case for all sedans, not just small cars. We barely produce any sedans. Among the big 3, the only ones are the CT4/CT5 duo, and the charger 4-door which is barely hanging on. You rarely see any sedan police cruisers or taxis in a country where big-body sedans were part of our core image. No more Ford Crown Victoria/panther body cars, no Chevy Caprice, no Taurus, Malibu, Impala, Chrysler 300, no big luxury Lincolns or Cadillacs. We’ve never been great at making small cars but no we’re not good at making cars at all anymore.
NivTal@reddit
Capitalism.
Better product for same or similar money. Duuh
V8-Turbo-Hybrid@reddit
Foreign automakers even have had problem in their sedan sales. We have lost A8, LS, Legacy, and Passat sedan.
Of course, that isn’t America issue, it’s happening in whole world.