Hello Hackrs, I hope that this question will raise some great discussions and I look forward to reading some great responses
Infiniti, unless they decide to finally update their cars to catch up with the rest of the market
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Infiniti, mitsubishi, chrysler (although I doubt fca as a whole is going anywhere).
In addition to the aforementioned: Hard to see any rationale for any FCA brand except Jeep and RAM staying in the US
Buick: sells well in China, almost irrelevant in the US
Infiniti: As long as Lexus (for sure) and Acura (almost as certain) remain in the US, Nissan will keep Infiniti here. Call it corporate pride, ego, or vanity
Brands that I find worthless: Chrysler, Fiat, Kia, Nissan, Infiniti, Mitsubishi, Mini, Genesis and wait for it… Lincoln.
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Infiniti.
Lincoln. While they have some impressive offerings, they have no market presence.
Buick and Chrysler will go with the boomers.
It’s incredible that mitsubishi is still around.
It will be interesting to see what the Hummer injects into GMC. I think that GMC could become the SUV and truck brand of GM and Chevrolet could become cars, especially sport cars.
Is mini still a thing? Do Maseratis sell?
Of course, it might take just one big hit to turn it all around.
Why would Ford kill Lincoln? Last time I checked Ford makes great gross margin on Lincoln SUVs
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Im standing by my prediction that Stellantis will ultimately kill Nissan/Infiniti in the US and take a shot at relaunching Renault/Alpine here.
I was following you until lincoln.
Navigator is the best full size luxury suv on the market atm.
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I think Mitsubishi will leave the US Market.
The cost of launching any new vehicle brand in the US is too big and makes no sense if you already have 2 well established brands. It’s ok if it’s a niche high end brand with only a few dealerships but for volume it costs too much. Just think of the dealership rebranding costs, marketing, sponsorship, etc. You could sink hundreds of millions of dollars into it and end up with a smaller market share.
Easiest way to bring Renault over is to just rebadge them as Nissans and 99% of people wouldn’t know the difference. GM does that, Toyota kind of does it with the new Supra, Daimler Chrysler used to do it.
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Sure, but I don’t know that there are any loss leading SUVs. Isn’t everyone finding good margins in SUVs? But it’s a competitive market and getting more competitive every day.
All this is speculative of course.
Smart sold a mere 680 cars in the US in 2019, so I think they will disappear from these shores very soon. I’ve only seen a couple of them in the last 10 years.
They’re still fairly popular in Europe though with sales of around 78,000.
They left the market lol. By the law of European cars eventually breaking, they will become even scarcer in the future.
Smart exited the US market after the 2019 model year due to slow sales and the high cost of [homologating] the Fortwo for the US.[62]
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Oh…never knew that. Thanks.
Yup, smart has been gone for awhile as Hershey said. Fiat is all but gone, the killed the 500/e/C and 124 Spider. All that’s left is the 500X and the 500L, which seems is still mostly selling as 2019s even now. The 500L won’t last much longer, and not sure how much longer Fiat can go on just the 500X.
Chrysler is just Pacifica/Voyager and 300. But Chrysler has the advantage of sharing a rooftop with broader CDJR. So they can manage to sell Chrysler brand even if it was just Pacifica. Durango may bite the dust when the more profitable 3-row JGC arrives, leaving just Challenger and Charger. How much longer they live on is unsure.
As for Lincoln, transaction prices have increased on a Y/Y basis more so than almost any other brand. Lincoln is more or less all based on Ford platforms but selling at much higher prices. I would argue is in the best position it’s been in since at least the first generation Navigator. By this time next year it’ll be an all SUV brand however. But those are the segments that are hot.
Renault is definitely not coming to the US and yes if anything it would come as rebadged to a Nissan.
The new QX60 will be make or break for Infiniti. They simply cannot get that one wrong.
Similarly for Mitsu and the new Outlander.
Genesis has a lot of resources behind it, and several brand new vehicles. So that’s unlikely to be going anywhere anytime soon.
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Stellantis is FCA + PSA, not Renault-Nissan.
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Oops… thats right… I think I meant Peugeot and DS actually. I still think we’ll eventually see Renault here again at some point.
Chrysler is going bye bye fast.
I think durango goes to 392 motor only and sells for a lot more and then disappears.
300 goes bye bye unless they bring a hellcat version… however that would cannibalize charger sales.
Challenger stays for a few more years before it goes to a new platform… how successful it is after that I couldn’t tell you.
Charger moves to the giulia platform or possibly a new platform with a bigger/revised body and the ability to go twin turbo and smaller displacement much like amg/M, it still stays rwd however.
Lincoln suv’s sell for more than ford’s suvs because they are completely different minus the powertrain and basic platform, wheras in the past they were upgraded explorers/Expeditions, they are now almost completely new cars.
Aviator is based on explorer but is a new shell and upgraded powertrain. I don’t think explorer has a plug in hybrid either… could be wrong. (It exists but I think it starts showing up in dealerships in the fall???)
Navigator is based on expedition, same story its a new shell and upgraded powertrain, day and night difference between an expedition and Navigator when you sit it one and drive it.