Honda, Toyota's plans for the Fatherland
Youth and eco-friendliness. Those two words could summarize Honda Motor Co. and Toyota Motor Corp.’s
strategies for
Germany, the heart of the European auto industry and marketplace. Honda plans to use the newly redesigned Civic to spearhead its campaign to attract younger buyers. Right now the Civic is popular among the older set: the average Honda Civic driver is 53 years old.
Toyota, on the other hand, is heavily pushing its revamped Lexus GS hybrid to increase its presence in the country. Representatives are in contact with government bodies and non-government agencies who promote environmental protection issues. Toyota is offering them test drives and discounts on the GS.
Currently, Honda has 1.3% and Toyota has a 4% marketshare in Germany, respectively.
[Source: TradingMarkets.com]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Meek 3:53PM (3/08/2006)
Germany is a hard market to crack. Maybe they should try some odd 'Japanese engineering in da house' commercial.
The link and the picture of the Civic are for the North American version. The Civic they are getting in Germany can be seen here.
http://www.honda.de/content/car/15113_41299.html
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Joey (Kev) 4:21PM (3/08/2006)
I personally don't see the new Euro-Civic being a success here in Germany. It looks plain odd. And the plastic on the grill is frigthening. The high performance version looks better but it is an up-hill fight.
Honda can be considered exotic in Germany and while Toyota has a respectable place in the market thanks to their no-experiments and no-innovations stance (and the quality of their dealerships because VW dealerships are not just bad in the US) they are moving their prices upwards to quickly. Germans are acustomed to spending a lot of money on cars and they are used to good interiors and technological advancements on new car generations. Badge engineering is not popular. So slapping a Lexus sign on a revamped Toyota basically doesn't make anybody enthusiastic.
It is interesting to see the German approach to hybrids. While they are second only to the Scandinavians in eco-friendliness (large subsidies for sun and wind energy, newly constructred houses have to fulfill certain energy-consumption criteria etc.) they have not fallen for Toyota's fairy tale regarding the ecological benefits of the hybrid. One reason is the great percentage of diesels that achieve great mileage. VW offered a (small) car that burnt 3l on 100 km. If you take into account the extra weight of the hybrid's second drivetrain and the toxic hazard produced by the battery you might think twice about a hybrid. Of course everybody is developing hybrids and that is a good thing because there are niches for them. And with progress they might overcome their disadvantages. But Toyota hasn't had the same impact as in the US.
So all in all while the Japanes companies are doing fine here they won't take over the market because the main difference is that the German car makers are in a much better shape than their American counterparts. Applies to Ford of Germany and Opel, too (not really regarded to be foreign here).
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Dolan 5:33PM (3/08/2006)
As much as like the new Civic for the NA market, I have to say once again -- Why can't Honda offer us a 5-door Civic? Seriously, how hard would it be? There are lots of us who live in urban areas who need practicality. So if anyone at Honda NA is listening, here's one vote.
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John B 7:57PM (3/08/2006)
Joey and Meek:
Here is a road test of the Honda Civic (diesel version) from Fifth Gear. The tester absolutely raved about the car.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=280723957717355448&q=fifth+gear
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klaatu 9:37AM (3/09/2006)
Joey, I regard the German, European and British reluctance to adopt hybrid technology as a stick-in-the-mud foolishness about as "bright" as the fact that it took the Europeans an extra 15 years plus to adopt catalytic convertors after the United States did.
Europeans talk about environmental concerns, but talking the talk and walking the walk are two different things.
Diesels are filthy. When I was in the UK last summer, the 1/2 hour of "telly" I actually watched was a news show from BBC on which a story was broadcast stating that diesel auto exhausts were now proved to be carcinogenic.
Therefore it is probably only a matter of time before diesel is banned from Europe and the UK.
That will shock the sh*t out of the Euro car companies including the "American Transplants" over there (how's that for a turnabout-being-fair-play?) when Toyota and Honda particularly are able to adapt to a quickly changing market condition and move away from diesel production (which they both do specifically for Europe and the UK often IN Europe and the UK) and start additional production of "petrol" hybrids and even fuel cell vehicles (which are hybrids of a sort, just no "petrol" - instead they have an electricity generating station onboard using stored hydrogen as the process by which electricity is "made").
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goat 11:01AM (3/09/2006)
Diesels are not "filthy." Only ignorance about emissions leads people to that conclusion, based on visible particulates. The Europeans are right; diesel makes a lot more sense that manufacturing (and eventually disposing or remanufacturing) all those batteries (manufacturing pollution and energy use is part of the overall ecological equation) for hybrids.
By adopting clean-diesel technology like BLUETEC, the benefits are maximized in all parts of the process.
The other thing to be considered is extending the usable life of vehicles. We could reduce a lot of pollution and waste by simply building vehicles to last longer, and diesel technology allows for this.
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klaatu 11:36AM (3/09/2006)
So if diesels are so clean, goat, why is it going to take so much expense and technology to get them to even get remotely close to current gasoline emissions, never mind the impossible goal of matching the 80% cleaner-than-California-requires Prius?
Comparatively speaking, something that pollutes 5 to 10 times or more as much as the best technology available is filty.
Plus there is the carcinogenic question.
The battery question you bring up has been answered many times and in many places including autoblog. The batteries will be recycled by the manufacturers at the end of the car life cycle. The rare earths are valuable, why put them in a landfill?
Just as now with modern cars - smart repair shops recycle the catalytic convertors to have the platinum, rhodium and palladium reclaimed, right? Wrong. My buddy works at a body shop and he tells me that virtuall nobody does this.
Again, for hybrid batteries, this is going to be taken care of by Toyota and Honda, and the body shops and so forth already know about Toyota protocol (for repairing hybrids) so I'm pretty certain they'll know that money will be coming there way if they recycle the batteries at the end of the car's life. Unlike, as I said, catalytic convertors.
Do you realize how valuable platinum is, by the way? Over $1000 an ounce.
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Hokit 7:35PM (3/09/2006)
Good luck to Honda and Toyota. Germany will be a hard market to crack, as is the rest of Europe.
I doubt it's the products that needs revamping. Japanese models in Europe can hardly be accused of being "boring" or "unimaginative". And even though it's taken a while, the Japanese brands have more or less grasped the idea of what 'clean, crisp, Euro design' means.
If anything, it's the bias against JAPANESE brands that turns many Europeans (especially Germans) off. Europe is a continent that has yet to reach the acceptance and multiculturalism of places like America and Australia. The 'racial superiority' vs 'racial inferiority' complex is still there. Why else would the likes of Toyota and Honda experience such mind-boggling success across the Atlantic, yet are relatively ignored in Europe?
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Joey (Kev) 4:19AM (3/10/2006)
#klaatu
The carcinogenic impact of Diesels is going to dissapear thanks to the different diesel filter systems already on the market and in development. In 5 years from now there won't be a new diesel sold in Europe without such a filter.
The positive impact of Diesel through higher mpg-ratios is resulting in lesser fuel consumption and lesser co2 emissions on a big scale.
The EuroIV and EuroV standard will bring substantial reduction of pollution. I hope your half hour of British tv didn't get you too confused. I honestly doubt they found out that NO2 is carcinogenic just then. The fact is that the toxic components of the Prius battery will be disposed of by nobody. Never mind that the platinum might be retrieved. The rest will end up polluting the environment. You're not proposing exchanging millions of Diesels in Europe with that kind of technology, right? Hybrid development is on its way in Europe and fuel cell technology has been going on for decades, with BMW already producing hydrogen cars and DCX fuel cell methanol-based cars. Diesel may not be the ideal fuel but if you claim petrol based extra-weight hybrids with toxic conventional batteries that are not used in urban areas to be THE thing than you are simply wrong.
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American 6:05PM (3/14/2006)
I think you can say the same about Diesel cars too. I think that they also have a battery on board too. Then by Joey's logic, diesel cars add to the "toxic" pollution too. Be real. Hybrids are here to stay in one form or another. And yes, batteries can be recycled and with a better filter for Diesel cars' emmission, I am willing to bet that the MPG will go down.
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