He has one advantage that past failed attempts didn't: electric cars are relatively simple compared to combustion engine cars.
But American consumers will want to see roughly 5 years of reliable quality reviews before they trust the brand. Problems with Yugos and early Hyundai's left a trail of memorable Internet memes.
So, what do you do the first 4 years? That's a lot of years to take a loss in order to gain market share.
Maybe start in the rental markets by loaning the cars out to rental shops. If they are loaned on a short-term basis, then the rental shops won't have to eat quality problems, if they appear.
One thing they have to know: if you foul up quality early, it takes a long time to recover that reputation. Detroit brands are still recovering from the clunkers they made in the 70's and 80's. They are now on par with the Japanese brands, but that's not good enough to get a clean reputation. Hyundai had to include generous extended warranties AND low prices to restore their reputation and market share.
Buy up a few parking lots in a few major metros and let people unlock the cars with an app on their phones as short term rentals.
The vehicles will probably end up as a loss, but it's going to get a lot of press. Then start selling them. Make the parking lots into car dealerships. Put them in college towns where people are just starting to get real jobs and have money to spend, and are also very online.
Do you mean sell the cars to students? It's same problem: they will probably prefer very used cars from known brands over slightly used cars from an unknown brand.
One advantage of selling people their first car is that they might be slightly less likely to have strong opinions on brands. Need every advantage you can get.
They're already selling their cars at a loss, according to the article. I'm sure there are plenty of people who would buy a Vietnamese electric car if it was 25-50% less than a Japanese/American/European one. Thats certainly how Korean cars managed to break into the US market.
This is clever, but I think you could get a similar result with fewer dedicated internal staff (better for a company with no US ops) by leasing or selling vehicles to e.g. ZipCar.
Detroit never stopped churning out clunkers. My neighbors brand new, $50k Chevy truck’s electrical is completely shot after first year. This is in mild Northern California weather.
It so bad, it's a running joke [1] I think low-end Fords (i.e. simple) are the only US car I'd consider and even then, their transmissions are suspect.
I think the broader point to note here is that it's relatively easy to build simple machines. It's hard to build reliable complex machines.
I would certainly trust a low end Ford Focus, more so than even a low end VW Golf / Skoda Scala.
As soon as you move into premium models both the American and European manufacturer start to show their weaknesses compared to the Lexus/Acura/Infiniti/etc brands from Japan.
> So, what do you do the first 4 years? That's a lot of years to take a loss in order to gain market share.
Hyundai addressed this by offering a ten year warranty. They could do that right out of the gate rather than waiting until they have a bad reputation first.
Another possibility is to start off with a big leasing program. People aren't too concerned about repair costs or resale values for leased vehicles.
Meme as in image macro with top and bottom text? I haven't either, but that's not what the word "meme" has meant until very recently. Meme as in "Hyundai/Yugo are terrible cars" repeated even by people who have never driven one? Very common back in the day before meme meant image macro.
FORD = Found On Road Dead (or Fix Or Repair Daily)
FIAT = Fix It Again Tony
JEEP = Just Empty Every Pocket
HYUNDAI = Hope You Understand Nothings Drivable And Inexpensive
They generally were jokes, some with images, some not. It seems every joke site at the time had at least one about Yugo's or Hyundai's. At least that's what I remember. This is roughly between 1995 and 2000. Some may have been on Compuserve instead of the Internet, I don't remember the details, but generally both copied each other.
> FORD = Found On Road Dead (or Fix Or Repair Daily)
Haha, just fixed my Ford in the driveway today! (Battery cable corroded to the point it wouldn't conduct anymore.) But the beast is 30 years old, so I forgive it.
In the same vein, my grandpa considered Toyotas to be "toys" ("they've even got 'toy' in the name) until he bought a Highlander and - eventually - a Prius.
> it takes a long time to recover that reputation. Detroit brands are still recovering from the clunkers they made in the 70's and 80's.
I would say that they are still recovering from the clunkers they made in the 2000s.
Detroit never really got into the quality mindset that the Japanese car makers became famous for. And they didn't get into the driving dynamics mindset of their European counterparts, except maybe a couple of Cadillac models starting with the CTS-V.
Never really recovered, did you see the recent article on the coverup over fiesta and focus transmissions at ford. Shit like this is why I don’t buy “American” (Mexican) cars
"American consumers will want to see roughly 5 years of reliable quality"
You say that as if it's gospel, but it sounds like "boomer thinking" to me. The demand for electric cars over the next ten years will mostly come form people who have different ways of making purchasing decisions than in decades past. And they've never heard of a Yugo.
I don’t think researching a $40k purchase and valuing reliability is “boomer thinking”. It’s a side effect of people getting married, buying homes, and starting families.
Yeah, lol. It's called adult thinking. And it happens once you actually become one. One that is responsible for others, not just yourself and your whims. "Adulting" for an hour a week to pay your bills doesn't count.
That might have been true once, but I suspect this small-sample history is now irrelevant due to shifting demographics. Only Boomers remember the Yugo. The rest of us are too busy trying to afford the privilege of commuting to really care where the car came from.
Why is this term suddenly popular, especially here?
I'm downvoting comments using it, since it seems to be disparaging at best, if not offensive. It's also used inaccurately. The Yugo wasn't even produced until 1980.
My sense of it is that most of these are Russian propagandists trying to sow dissent in America, and that's why the popularity of the phrase tends to peak for two months are so and then die off for six months before resurfacing.
You're close. I'm actually a shill for Reynolds Wrap. They want you to think it's Russia so that the surplus tinfoil from the holidays will all sell off. Then they deactivate us until cookout season comes around.
It is offensive, 100%. It's grouping and stereotyping people based on age, meaning that for example my parents are subject to it, despite growing up in communist Poland and not getting any economic benefits normally attributed to "boomers". At 28, I'm probably 10x "wealthier" than they were at my age, but of course they are "boomers" by age so fuck them for ruining the economy, right?
> but of course they are "boomers" by age so fuck them for ruining the economy, right?
If you're vicariously triggered by the word "boomer", it's because you have this attitude attached to it. As with the other commenter, I can't help you with words you're trying to put in my mouth.
It seems to have gained popularity among younger people as an insult against anyone perceived as older. I'm 39 and have been called a boomer by a teen of about 14 or 15 yo. I guess it morphed into an insult for anyone older than 30 nowadays.
Its a mix of 4chan and reddit memes, plus deliberate attempts by bad actors to provoke intra-cultural conflict to shape consensus and rally people to respective voting blocks.
There are strains of truth there -- life ain't grand for the millennial crowd -- but it's more of a meme than anything, IMO.
Also rather incongruous on HN, since there is a much stronger mid-career / older crowd on HN, aka the Slashdot refugees.
I don't remember Slashdot being quite this salty, but it's been long time. All I said was "Boomer" and suddenly everyone's acting like they just saw the fnords.
What a bizarre sentiment. If you can barely afford it you should care more. Get a reliable make and model that there are a lot of so the parts are cheap. Also, I’m not a Boomer and I remember Yugos.
The actual topic is reliability. Country-of-origin is a consideration in reliability. You can't just exclude the context of the original post.
You're trying to argue that "Boomers", which I took in good faith that you were not using as an epithet, are the only ones who would consider country-of-origin. That's, simply put, wrong.
> electric cars are relatively simple compared to combustion engine cars.
It's not really an advantage, though. Established makers have that same advantage, with the addition of having established dealer and service networks, established reputation, and so on.
But American consumers will want to see roughly 5 years of reliable quality reviews before they trust the brand. Problems with Yugos and early Hyundai's left a trail of memorable Internet memes.
So, what do you do the first 4 years? That's a lot of years to take a loss in order to gain market share.
Maybe start in the rental markets by loaning the cars out to rental shops. If they are loaned on a short-term basis, then the rental shops won't have to eat quality problems, if they appear.
One thing they have to know: if you foul up quality early, it takes a long time to recover that reputation. Detroit brands are still recovering from the clunkers they made in the 70's and 80's. They are now on par with the Japanese brands, but that's not good enough to get a clean reputation. Hyundai had to include generous extended warranties AND low prices to restore their reputation and market share.