[mojo]

Strange resignation...

While American premium brands Cadillac and Lincoln look to the Germans for inspiration — and their places on the podium — Lexus Europe chief Alain Uyttenhoven proclaimed that the Teutonic Trinity — BMW, Mercedes and Audi — were “impossible” to beat on a global scale, settling for fourth if possible.


According to Just-Auto, Uyttenhoven says the parent company is “out of its adolescence,” a turbulent time that included taking a one-two combo from the Great Recession and the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. Global sales prior to the occurrences topped out at 518,000 in 2007, with 2013 sales hitting a new peak of 523,000 units sold. That figure is just a quarter of what Audi aims to sell by 2020.

Perhaps he means playing by their rules???

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2014/11/uyttenhoven-teutonic-trinity-impossible-beat/

 

[mister]

I don't think that selling the most cars is necessarily the best measure of success. You can make great, high quality vehicles that please customers and have high profit margins and that is great. I think that focusing on those things will get more people to buy the cars more anyway.

 

[Kennedy]

at least they're honest.
going at this rate the germans have, it's not going to be easy to beat them, maybe long into the future but for and for a while....it's their game.

 

[mister]

yea its one of those things where they aren't guaranteed to stay there forever but for the foreseeable future they probably will. Remember that Cadillac used to be on top of the world, and now not so much. Things change over time. The Germans will eventually get too comfortable and won't be cutting edge. That is my prediction at least.

 

[mojo]

yea its one of those things where they aren't guaranteed to stay there forever but for the foreseeable future they probably will. Remember that Cadillac used to be on top of the world, and now not so much. Things change over time. The Germans will eventually get too comfortable and won't be cutting edge. That is my prediction at least.

Correction, Cadillac was on top of the US, they;ve never had success outside of these borders. The Germans have always been a dominant force in Europe, just no one noticed until they displaced Cadillac and Lincoln in North America...

 

[mister]

Correction, Cadillac was on top of the US, they;ve never had success outside of these borders. The Germans have always been a dominant force in Europe, just no one noticed until they displaced Cadillac and Lincoln in North America...

OK, good point.

I'm just saying that leading the market at one point doesn't mean it will be like that forever. Microsoft was on top for a long time and Apple looked doomed, now Apple is the most valued company in the entire world.

 

[FSport]

The Germans will eventually get too comfortable and won't be cutting edge. That is my prediction at least.

But they are who a big portion of the industry is trying to catch up to and be like. 'German' and 'too comfortable' shouldn't be in the same sentence. If anything they're the one's to not be complacent, just looking at what they have done and are actively doing makes this clear.

 

[mister]

But they are who a big portion of the industry is trying to catch up to and be like. 'German' and 'too comfortable' shouldn't be in the same sentence. If anything they're the one's to not be complacent, just looking at what they have done and are actively doing makes this clear.

I agree that right now they are pushing themselves. I am just saying that nothing lasts forever. Seeing cars like the BMW i8 makes me think that BMW is really doing a good job at pushing themselves.

 

[NXT]

The Germans are good enough that I even want to go German but to be on the safe side for now i'm going Lexus.