Aug 21, 2005 01:34 PM
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(Updated Aug 21, 2005 01:34 PM)
There was a commenter who was defending Nissan from the likes of Toyota and Honda.
I intend to clarify a few things... :-) (My opinions)
The X-trail is not available in the US Market -- I have no idea why...No idea why it costs more than the CR-V even. The US Market CR-V is built in the UK by the way....Maybe the X-Trail is made only in Japan therefore more expensive???
True Nissan is one of the larger car companies in the US but it is not as fiscally profitable as Toyota and not even as Honda. This is a fact. Why? Read on...
Nissan's cars styling is good nowadays (helped by Renault who are majority owners) but they have too many unprofitable product lines in the market. Used to have more products but are consolidating slowly.....
They have five/six mid size SUV's in the market (PATHFINDER and it's lesser siblings), while Honda has just two, the PILOT and the MDX (latter the Luxury version) and now the Ridgeline mid-sized truck derived from those SUV's. Toyota has about four.
Honda make more money because whatever they introduce to the market goes through a long (some say too long) period of R&D (research and development) and fine-tuning. Every focused and perfected vehicle made in every targeted car segment from Honda is a winner in their respective segment. With that strategy you don't need fifteen different models. The same cannot be said about Nissan but I am still hopeful about 'Infiniti' their luxury division.
Toyota also has many cars in many segments -- they target many more segments than Honda or even Nissan, although not as many models as Nissan in each segment. Nissan needs to clean house and do some consumer research to focus their models...
BTW The Toyota QUALIS in the Indian Market is undeserving of an SUV moniker -- this contraption was designed in Indonesia from a pickup truck -- darn shame!! Better they replace it with something useful like the smaller 4Runner which is actually more fuel efficient.
- These three mfrs. (Toyota, Nissan and HONDA) are bigger and more profitable among the Japanese US market players. The Mitsubishis and the Suzukis are losers who are fringe players among the Japanese brandnames. Isuzu is almost completely out of the fiercely contested US car market. Their cars are made in Chevy nowadays and they only make diesel engines for larger Chevy mid-size commercial trucks.
More later....
