Yes that seems to be the attitude adopted by the car manufacturers off late.Everyone wants to play the premium tag.Nobody wants to sell affordable ,value for money cars.Value for money really has become a bad word as far as car manufacturers are concerned[atleast the established brands].
Skoda wants to move on as a premium car manufacturer and so is VW.Honda are planning to sell only the most expensive cars in their segment after the success of this strategy with the CRV.The latest attempt is more an attempt to take on the Bmw and the Mercedes customers rather than cater to the middle class as it has done so far in the US markets.Honda have publicly stated that as part of its global strategy if they ever come across a Honda Taxi they will buy it back[Premium hotels are exempt from this rule] guess thats why you hardly come across a Honda taxi.Even Hyundai are moving towards the premium segment cars.Its the same with Toyota too their cars just keep getting expensive with each passing generation though I have not yet heard of their premium tag aspirations.
Yes it is profitable to sell these so called premium cars but when everybody wants to play the same card it could just backfire.They should not forget that traditionally they were the ones to benefit from overpriced cars from rivals now somebody else could fill their shoes.
[Image source:wikipedia]
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Is selling a cheap car a sin?
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A very interesting observation there Rahul. Its mainly Honda, Toyota & Skoda which is following the premium pricing strategy, case in point is the City, Civic, CRV. Only the Accord seems sensibly priced. Similar case with Skoda's Laura and Fabia.
Toyota too have ridicously overpriced their Camry to insane levels, trying to rival Mercedes C Class and BMW 3 Series, rather then Honda's Accord.
Hyundai too has started to do this with the Getz Diesel, i10(5.5L for the highest variant is way to high for a car smaller then Swift and size of a Estilo)
In all this overpricing, GM, Tata and MSIL are going to be winners since they are pricing their products very very competitively.
Well written article, thanks alot for sharing.
Cheers
http://thecarsandmore.blogspot.com/
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