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American car sales in Europe?

P

Peter

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Trump recently complained that Europe doesn't buy enough American cars but there are plenty of perfectly reason why we don't and in fact the UK used to buy an absolute shitload of US cars.

During the time of Tony Blair the talk was about politicians trying to capture the vote of the Mondeo Man (the Ford Mondeo was the top selling car for decades) who were middle class and seen as socially mobile at the time. That was a time when US companies could sell cars here and compete.

Now though US cars are larger than our roads can accomodate are not as fuel efficient and are just not designed with Europe in mind.

I don't think there's actually any anti-US bias when people buy a vehicle they just get the best they can for the budget they have and for a while that was the US then it was Japan and now it's Korea.

Do you think Europe has a vendetta against US auto makers as I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.
 
The trips that we have made to Europe, we have found the roads and streets, especially in smaller town, are not made with large vehicles. Cars, to the US drivers, are an extension of themselves. Many go into significant debt to keep up appearances. Europeans have been used to high fuel prices and they drive appropriate automobiles. Manual transmission is the standard, automatics are the rarity. TBF, the distances traveled are shorter for daily drivers in Europe, US drivers spend a large amount of time on the road, getting to and from work.

I remember one trip where we rented a car and toured a good portion of the Danish/Northern German area. The vehicle was a manual transmission and there was a feature that caused me concern until I had gotten used to it. When pulled up to traffic light and stopping and depressing the clutch causes the engine to stop. I thought for sure we would need a tow back to the rental counter. It seems this is a feature to save fuel ans when you release the clutch, the engine springs back to life. Not sure what this does to starter life.

Europeans see automobiles as a tool to do a job, Americans see a status symbol as well as transportation, imo.
 
Rexedgar said:
The trips that we have made to Europe, we have found the roads and streets, especially in smaller town, are not made with large vehicles. Cars, to the US drivers, are an extension of themselves. Many go into significant debt to keep up appearances. Europeans have been used to high fuel prices and they drive appropriate automobiles. Manual transmission is the standard, automatics are the rarity. TBF, the distances traveled are shorter for daily drivers in Europe, US drivers spend a large amount of time on the road, getting to and from work.

I remember one trip where we rented a car and toured a good portion of the Danish/Northern German area. The vehicle was a manual transmission and there was a feature that caused me concern until I had gotten used to it. When pulled up to traffic light and stopping and depressing the clutch causes the engine to stop. I thought for sure we would need a tow back to the rental counter. It seems this is a feature to save fuel ans when you release the clutch, the engine springs back to life. Not sure what this does to starter life.

Europeans see automobiles as a tool to do a job, Americans see a status symbol as well as transportation, imo.
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That's a feature that saves petrol while stopped in traffic. It was popular for a while but isn't really a thing now as far as I know but I think you can have it as an option maybe?

I can see it being usefull in cities in the UK where traffic is a nightmare but some of those are electric only now with congetsion charges.
All taxis in London are now electric so they don't pay the daily charges for instance.
 
Minerva said:
From the roads I have driven in Ireland and Europe, nothing bigger than a Mazda MX3 would be my choice.
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The larger trucks you have would be a nightmare here.
You are allowed to import them and they are completely road legal but they just don't work well.
 
noonereal said:
No, but they will soon. Rightfully so.
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Maybe if Americans started buying the same sorts of cars that sell in Europe and Japan we might start buying them.
I've seen the odd muscle car now and then as we have a historic car show neaby at Shuttleworth Airodrome a few times a year that attracts a load of classic US cars.

Events - Shuttleworth Events & Attractions

www.shuttleworth.org www.shuttleworth.org

This is just a 10 minute drive from me.
 
Peter said:
Do you think Europe has a vendetta against US auto makers as I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.
Click to expand...

Nope. Ford are cutting back on production and Vauxhall Chrysler sold all their facilities to Peugot. That's their decision as the biggest selling cars each year were Fords and Vauxhall hatchbacks.

Peter said:
The larger trucks you have would be a nightmare here.
You are allowed to import them and they are completely road legal but they just don't work well.
Click to expand...

Just as a slightly different take - this video is of a guy letting American truck drivers try out his Scania at a truck show in the US. Their reaction to the comfort and drivability is interesting....

The actual test driving starts around 5 minutes and 55 seconds in.

 
Infinite Chaos said:
Nope. Ford are cutting back on production and Vauxhall Chrysler sold all their facilities to Peugot. That's their decision as the biggest selling cars each year were Fords and Vauxhall hatchbacks.



Just as a slightly different take - this video is of a guy letting American truck drivers try out his Scania at a truck show in the US. Their reaction to the comfort and drivability is interesting....

The actual test driving starts around 5 minutes and 55 seconds in.

Click to expand...


I've been watching a few of those and the differences between US and Euro trucks is pretty insane.
I thought such a utilitarian vehicle would have been standardised long ago but the different styles are wild.
You just don't see US style trucks at all here and from the video the same is true for Euro trucks in the US.

Not being a trucker I have no idea which is best.
 
Peter said:
You just don't see US style trucks at all here and from the video the same is true for Euro trucks in the US.
Click to expand...

Which part of the country do you live in?
You'll see more of the big cab-over style trucks here away from London and they are just as big as the American counterparts. Main difference is that you can (if you are happy to pay more) get your American truck extended / customised a bit more in the US. In Europe, legislation banned trucks over 61.5 feet in length so the power unit and driver compartment in European trucks was built upwards so that you kept the same length but the trailer could be longer (and thus stay within the 61.5 feet limit.)

Military trucks that move tanks and other military vehicles around don't have to conform to those rules - and drivers don't need to sleep in the cab so the whole vehicle is dedicated to the power unit.

armyhq-2016-038-ex-tractable-16-006.jpg


You'll see a lot of these down in Surrey near the tank training grounds as well as up here in the north.
 
Infinite Chaos said:
Which part of the country do you live in?
You'll see more of the big cab-over style trucks here away from London and they are just as big as the American counterparts. Main difference is that you can (if you are happy to pay more) get your American truck extended / customised a bit more in the US. In Europe, legislation banned trucks over 61.5 feet in length so the power unit and driver compartment in European trucks was built upwards so that you kept the same length but the trailer could be longer (and thus stay within the 61.5 feet limit.)

Military trucks that move tanks and other military vehicles around don't have to conform to those rules - and drivers don't need to sleep in the cab so the whole vehicle is dedicated to the power unit.

armyhq-2016-038-ex-tractable-16-006.jpg


You'll see a lot of these down in Surrey near the tank training grounds as well as up here in the north.
Click to expand...

I live in Bedforshire in East Anglia.
The town I live in has a huge warehouse for the Co-Op with 1k staff and a load of lorries and it's in an industrial park that has other companies such as a Euro HQ for Liebherr cranes.

Liebherr in the United Kingdom - Liebherr

Liebherr has two locations in the United Kingdom: Biggleswade north of London and the port city of Sunderland in northeast England.
www.liebherr.com www.liebherr.com

The Biggleswade branch is about a 20 minute walk from my house and they test cranes all the time.
 
Infinite Chaos said:
There will be large trucks in the area then. Pretty sure of it.
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There are loads of large trucks for moving that vast cranes and they're all Euro types from what I've seen. I go past the crane factory every day for work as it's just over the other side of the road.

I can only go on what I see.
Military vehicles are not something I see here.
 
Ford is the one American car maker with a European presence, but Ford also makes the cars for Europe in Europe, because as has been mentioned, the cars made in the US are too big for our roads. And also having a local production line usually makes everything just easier.
 
This is another subject that thanks to the political spin machine is conflating too many reasons into something that it is not.

GM pulled out of Europe via divesting Opel and Vauxhall to another company in 2017. Ford is still in Europe but has seen declining sales over the past 3-4 years. Slowing development of, and finally ending, the Ford Focus soon after outright cancelling the Fiesta a while back (I think 2022 or 2023) pretty much signals a GM type retreat. For what it is worth, Ford also killed those lines of cars (or similar) in the US market as well suggesting what Ford really wants to build Europe is likely not to buy. Even cars that were designed for the European market are no more (or at least there are less of them even if branded as other than Ford.)

To be honest neither one can compete with European automakers for cars designed to be used in European nations. Tariffs, other taxes, and trade agreements has very little to do with this.

An argument could be made that there is a general sentiment that European automakers have superior standards to US automakers (even with European cars made in the US or vice versa when US cars are made in Europe.) You add in Japan automakers this gets more entertaining. USA companies will not compete well with all that anyway, apples to apples.

I hear GM is trying to get back into the European market via EV cars but there will be a slew of competition in that space, and it is not Tesla doing the competing.

This is simply too complex of a set of conditions for the typical Trumpism style response to all this. Trump saying Europe should buy more of our cars is a comment rooted in massive ignorance of what Europe wants to buy and what Ford and GM intend to sell.
 
Peter said:
Trump recently complained that Europe doesn't buy enough American cars but there are plenty of perfectly reason why we don't and in fact the UK used to buy an absolute shitload of US cars.

During the time of Tony Blair the talk was about politicians trying to capture the vote of the Mondeo Man (the Ford Mondeo was the top selling car for decades) who were middle class and seen as socially mobile at the time. That was a time when US companies could sell cars here and compete.

Now though US cars are larger than our roads can accomodate are not as fuel efficient and are just not designed with Europe in mind.

I don't think there's actually any anti-US bias when people buy a vehicle they just get the best they can for the budget they have and for a while that was the US then it was Japan and now it's Korea.

Do you think Europe has a vendetta against US auto makers as I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.
Click to expand...


Ford is the only US owned auto company that has any real presence in Europe

GM sold Opel and Vauxhall to Peugeot. Peugeot merged with FCA which owned the Chrysler group.

Ford has the escape which if I recall correctly is based on the focus platform, which is the only platform suitable for mass sales in Europe. It used to be very popular, not sure what Ford sales are now in Europe

The Mustang is a specialty product in Europe, the full size pickups way to big for western Europe to sell well.

US owned companies over time failed to invest in vehicles that Europe tends to purchase, leading to the decline in sales
 
Both the Ford Focus and the smaller Fiesta (my mum has one of these) sold like hotcakes in the UK and tou see them everywhere.

Both are fantastic cars.
 
Peter said:
I've been watching a few of those and the differences between US and Euro trucks is pretty insane.
I thought such a utilitarian vehicle would have been standardised long ago but the different styles are wild.
You just don't see US style trucks at all here and from the video the same is true for Euro trucks in the US.

Not being a trucker I have no idea which is best.
Click to expand...
Fun fact.. the biggest American Truck makers..owned by Europeans... Mercedes and Volvo specifically.
 
What about the VW beetle of old …
 
Peter said:
I've been watching a few of those and the differences between US and Euro trucks is pretty insane.
I thought such a utilitarian vehicle would have been standardised long ago but the different styles are wild.
You just don't see US style trucks at all here and from the video the same is true for Euro trucks in the US.

Not being a trucker I have no idea which is best.
Click to expand...


Cab overs in the US for long haul trucking died out in the 80’s I believe. Comfort being one issue, the ride was bumpier back then. Safety for the driver was another issue. Not having the long hood for crush zones

The tighter confines of roads and yards in Europe make the cab overs style more practical than the US style trucks. The extra 6 feet would make some yards far more difficult to manoeuvre in

The ride issues have been solved, and the active safety that is common in Europe trucks make them quite safe
 
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