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Before Kia it was Honda and Toyota in the 80s/90s. Before that there was the 70s love affair with small Italian and British imports like Fiat and Mini. Before t

Before Kia it was Honda and Toyota in the 80s/90s. Before that there was the 70s love affair with small Italian and British imports like Fiat and Mini. Before that was the 60s love affair with Volkswagen. It's a cycle that has happened so many times already in the US of imports filling small car niches (both niches that are small and large niches that include smaller cars) the domestic manufacturers ignore for too many years at a time. You would almost think that US manufacturers would have learned by now given how many times it has repeated.

swatcoder 3y ago
I'm not even a car person, and I can name 2-3 domestics attempts during each of those eras. Nobody's ignoring anything. It's just a hard market for them to sustain because demand is reletively low here and margins are thin as part of the market's intense price sensitivity. It's a good place for new/foreign manufacturers to gain brand awareness because niche demand persists but it's not profitable enough for any car maker really benefits to focus on here, where luxury/design/size all invite much bigger profits
- WorldMaker 3y ago
  I agree that it is a habit of high margin profit chasing. It also says a lot that almost every time the imports become "domesticated" they seem to move into the same problematic high margin areas. Honda US and Nissan US are huge truck companies today. Kia US is mostly a luxury SUV company. However, I disagree that it is a sustainability problem because I think it is a "fashion trend" problem and companies aren't good at predicting trends (especially not ones on the scale of decades in current US corporate culture), and are just sticking to bad habits (that unfortunately are profit rewarded enough that they don't feel enough relentless "quarterly" pressure to challenge those bad habits).
- rasz 3y ago
  >I can name 2-3 domestics attempts during each of those eras can you name any that didnt suck? :) That crosses iconic Pinto and Pacer out straight off the bat. In the 80s maybe only Omni was ok, 90s hmm Neon? Rebadged Japanese cars sold under Geo brand dont count.
  - WorldMaker 3y ago
    Geo weren't rebadged, they were built in California. Geo and its NUMMI plant was a strange collaboration between Toyota and GM (even the Geo logo had both Toyota's lines and GM's Chevrolet "bow tie"). Which is more important to note that Geo entirely existed because GM realized it had entirely forgot how to make smaller cars and begged Toyota to teach it its ways, years after Honda and Toyota were winning hearts and minds. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NUMMI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NUMMI

swatcoder 3y ago

I'm not even a car person, and I can name 2-3 domestics attempts during each of those eras. Nobody's ignoring anything. It's just a hard market for them to sustain because demand is reletively low here and margins are thin as part of the market's intense price sensitivity. It's a good place for new/foreign manufacturers to gain brand awareness because niche demand persists but it's not profitable enough for any car maker really benefits to focus on here, where luxury/design/size all invite much bigger profits

WorldMaker 3y ago
I agree that it is a habit of high margin profit chasing. It also says a lot that almost every time the imports become "domesticated" they seem to move into the same problematic high margin areas. Honda US and Nissan US are huge truck companies today. Kia US is mostly a luxury SUV company. However, I disagree that it is a sustainability problem because I think it is a "fashion trend" problem and companies aren't good at predicting trends (especially not ones on the scale of decades in current US corporate culture), and are just sticking to bad habits (that unfortunately are profit rewarded enough that they don't feel enough relentless "quarterly" pressure to challenge those bad habits).
rasz 3y ago
>I can name 2-3 domestics attempts during each of those eras can you name any that didnt suck? :) That crosses iconic Pinto and Pacer out straight off the bat. In the 80s maybe only Omni was ok, 90s hmm Neon? Rebadged Japanese cars sold under Geo brand dont count.
- WorldMaker 3y ago
  Geo weren't rebadged, they were built in California. Geo and its NUMMI plant was a strange collaboration between Toyota and GM (even the Geo logo had both Toyota's lines and GM's Chevrolet "bow tie"). Which is more important to note that Geo entirely existed because GM realized it had entirely forgot how to make smaller cars and begged Toyota to teach it its ways, years after Honda and Toyota were winning hearts and minds. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NUMMI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NUMMI