NISSAN SOLD ON ELECTRIC CARS, NOT HYBRIDS

[dnalexander]

Not many new cars left in the 10-15K range. I'm with you Steve even the $30,000 price tag is not what I would spend on a car gas or electric.
David

[dnalexander]

Steve for just under 20 of your houses and the price of the expensive Tesla sports car you could buy the average house in my neighborhood. Another thing out of my price range. And just to give you an idea these houses are from the 1930's to 1950's and 900 t0 1200 square feet on small lots.

David

[srkruzich]

Steve for just under 20 of your houses and the price of the expensive Tesla sports car you could buy the average house in my neighborhood. Another thing out of my price range. And just to give you an idea these houses are from the 1930's to 1950's and 900 t0 1200 square feet on small lots.

David

I know. I have been over to the left coast.  I couldn't believe what they get for houses there.   
I have a 55,000 dollar piece of property in georgia that is 1 1/2 acres of raw land.  I haven't sold it yet.  I took it off the market last month because i found out that Volkswagon is building a new plant in chattanooga tn 60 miles away from my property. I figure that blairsville ga is going to be the town chosen by executives tol live and my property there will double in value. IF it does, i'll sell out in a new york second and buy me some more property here and invest the rest. Maybe get my farm self supporting with some equipment and enhancements that are 100% paid for.

As for vehicles, i drive old ones Til the wheels fall off.   LOL i have three now. One is in georgia. 1998 blazer, i have a 1989 s10 pickup here and a 1968 ford pickup f100. 
I hate even thinking of bringing my blazer here because the state taxes on our vehicles are obscene!  They want to charge me 100 dollars for a tag for a 20 year old truck.  What a rip off!!!

[flo]

Most Nissan, Toyota and Honda vehicles are made in America by Americans and add very little to the trade imbalance.

are they MADE in America or ASSEMBLED in America? There is a difference.

[dnalexander]

www.zapworld.com/ is also an electric car company in my area. They have some with lower price tags in the $10,000 to 15,000. They have even more limited range and most cant reach highway speed. I put them in kind of the fancy golf cart category. Even though most people probably don't drive over 200 miles in a day until the range of these gets more competitive with gas cars,  the electric cars I have seen will be relegated to 2nd car status or hobby cars. Americans love to drive and for those times I want to go on a long road trip these cars just don't fit the bill. It will be interesting to see if this surge in electric cars takes hold or just become nostalgic show cars at future car shows.

David

[W. Gray]

Perhaps, some time in the future, if you and the family are on vacation and run out of "gas."

Would you coast to the nearest farm house, get out with a 100 foot extension cord, and ask to "borrow" some electricity.

[dnalexander]

With the current recharging times you will have to ask if you can spend the night too. We already have some charging stations in parking lots\structures and at several government buildings but I still see the trip to grandma's house being a big stumbling block.

David

[mtcookson]

sorry, if you've got the money to buy a new car, PLEASE BUY AMERICAN

I'm all for supporting American business and products, especially compared to all of the Chinese junk we're getting flooded with... but, the American car manufacturers need a complete overhaul on how they operate and build cars before I'll buy one again. My fiance bought a brand new 2008 Mazda Tribute (built by Ford in Kansas City, sister vehicles are the Ford Escape and Mercury Mariner). We first tested out a couple Jeep models which were absolutely horrible, they drove horrible, sounded horrible, and the interiors were just plain cheap. We got in the Tribute and it was waaaaayyyy better than the Jeep and cheaper to boot. We decided on getting that one and not even a year passed before we started having problems. The air bag error light came on twice, we had it fixed but it came on again, the vehicle overall started to become very noisy, the head rest bars poked out a bit on the back of the front seats causing a pretty high safety concern in the case of frontal collisions for the rear passengers, and shortly before trading the transmission start acting up (with only around 20,000 miles). It was quickly becoming a nightmare and even worse, being an SUV, the value was dropping faster than normal due to fuel prices.

We finally decided to take a hit money wise and trade it for a new Mazda CX-7 that they had a pretty good deal on. This particular Mazda is made in Japan and is simply built way better than the Ford built Mazda we traded. The price was the same (though we're paying more due to the poor value of the Tribute) but the quality just isn't even close. The interior is a lot nicer, the ride is better, its quieter, it has a smaller engine for better fuel economy but is turbocharged so makes even more power than the V6 in the Tribute, it has a 6-speed automatic that also helps with fuel economy on the highway, its just all around a better vehicle that was priced the same.

I believe the problem problem is that the unions are absolutely killing them (as you can tell by Toyota now being the largest automaker worldwide). The amount of money that the original big 3 had to pay due to the unions essentially forced them to have to make stuff cheaper to make any money. I believe they had to pay around 2,000 to 3,000 per employee making their profit per car for the company even less. That's the big thing that's really killing them. The other problem is that for the longest time they haven't really been building what the people want. The foreign manufacturers have been good about giving the people what they want so by the time the domestics manufacturers come out with the same stuff its already too late and the imports are selling more, then of course you have the quality and reliability differences.

On the reliability thing, they aren't all completely unreliable of course. Most of the Japanese cars do have a higher reliability rating and even some Korean cars but oddly enough the European manufacturers generally have a lower rating than the domestics do (regardless though, there are vehicles from every manufacturer that are excellent and terrible. Right now though, Subaru is considered the most reliable out there and is built in the US to boot, Indiana to be exact). Some of the newer vehicles coming out from GM and Ford do look very, very promising though. From a lot of the reviews I've read, the new Chevy Malibu is probably one of the best built cars out right now as far as quality and build easily competing with Toyota's cars. There's also a new Ford car out that is supposed to rival Toyota's and Honda's as far as quality and reliability but I can't remember the name off hand.

Anyway... right now is the time for the American auto manufacturers to start making some big changes and start coming out with some quality cars with better profit margins. To really pull it off the unions would have to have a major change or just disappear but regardless, with the dollar weak right now exports would be a huge. If they can make some quality vehicles to compete with the current foreign front runners they could make a killing in the international market. The problem is American vehicles have a bad rep overseas so they definitely need to make some drastic changes to change that. I'm sad to say that until they do that I personally will avoid them. I would be interested in looking into that new Malibu but I don't really need a car like that so wouldn't be interested for a while. I do have an older 86 Chevy Blazer 4WD and I absolutely love it. It has an underpowered 2.8 V6 and has so many squeaks it sound like a tank driving down the road (which is why I nicknamed it The Tank) but the thing has over a 1/4 of a million miles on it and still runs. I think the engine is near the end of its life so will be putting a different one in but it still is built a lot better than a lot of the newer domestics vehicles. I also have a 89 Ford F150 but am a little more disappointed in it compared to the Blazer. The engine is nice and strong and I'm sure would last quite a while but I just don't like the feel of it as much, its more of a personal preference thing really but it does seem to be built a little better than some of the newer ones I've been in.

are they MADE in America or ASSEMBLED in America? There is a difference.

They consider a vehicle domestic if its parts content is 75% or higher however... if they are assembled in America they are still bringing in American jobs regardless. Here's a list of "import" vehicles that are built/assembled in the US:

Acura TL – Marysville, Ohio
BMW X5 – Spartanburg, South Carolina
BMW Z4 – Spartanburg, South Carolina
Honda Accord – Marysville, Ohio
Honda Civic – East Liberty, Ohio (up to 70% domestic parts content, could soon be considered domestic)
Honda Element – East Liberty, Ohio
Honda Odyssey – Lincoln, Alabama
Honda Pilot – Lincoln, Alabama
Hyundai Sonata – Montgomery, Alabama
Hyundai Santa Fe – Montgomery, Alabama
Mazda 6 – Flat Rock, Michigan
Mazda B-Series – Minneapolis, Minnesota (same platform as the Ford Ranger)
Mazda Tribute – Kansas City, Missouri (built on the same platform as the Ford Escape and Mercury Mariner so should be considered domestic though now has 65% domestics parts so I'm not sure why its still on the list)
Mercedes-Benz M-Class – Vance, Alabama
Mercedes-Benz R-Class – Vance, Alabama
Mitsubishi Eclipse – Normal, Illinois
Mitsubishi Endeavor – Normal, Illinois
Mitsubishi Galant – Normal, Illinois
Mitsubishi Raider – Warren, Michigan
Infiniti QX56 – Canton, Mississippi
Isuzu Ascender – Moraine, Ohio and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Isuzu i-Series Pickup – Shreveport, Louisiana
Nissan Altima – Smyrna, Tennessee and Canton, Mississippi
Nissan Armada – Canton, Mississippi
Nissan Frontier – Smyrna, Tennessee (Suzuki's new truck is a Nissan Frontier)
Nissan Maxima – Smyrna, Tennessee
Nissan Pathfinder – Smyrna, Tennessee
Nissan Quest – Canton, Mississippi
Nissan Titan – Canton, Mississippi
Nissan Xterra – Smyrna, Tennessee
Saab 9-7X – Moraine, Ohio
Subaru Baja – Lafayette, Indiana
Subaru B9 Tribeca – Lafayette, Indiana
Subaru Legacy – Lafayette, Indiana
Subaru Outback – Lafayette, Indiana
Toyota Avalon – Georgetown, Kentucky
Toyota Camry – Georgetown, Kentucky
Toyota Camry Solara – Georgetown, Kentucky
Toyota Corolla – Fremont, California
Toyota Sequoia – Princeton, Indiana
Toyota Sienna – Princeton, Indiana
Toyota Tundra – Princeton, Indiana
Toyota Tacoma – Fremont, California

A few domestic vehicles:
Chevy HHR - built in Mexico
Chevy Impala - built in Canada (and a lot of police use these cars, I think most of Wichita PD's cars are Impalas)
Chrysler 300 - built in Canada
Chrysler PT Cruiser - built in Mexico
Dodge minivans - most made in Canada
Dodge Ram - less than 75% domestic parts
Ford Focus 2008 - 65%
Ford Mustang - 65% (the V6 engine is built in Germany, manual transmissions are made in Mexico, and auto transmissions in France)
Jeep Wrangler - less than 75% (less than the previous model years)

Foreign ownership:

Ford owns:
Jaguar
Land Rover
Mazda (33%)
Volvo cars

GM owns:
Daewoo (44%, though I don't believe they sell them as Daewoo here anymore)
Saab
Suzuki (2.5%)

Chrysler used to be owned by Daimler (german) but Daimler actually ended up paying about $650 million to get rid of Chrysler (due to losses). Chrysler is now owned by Cerberus Capital Management, based out of NYC.

[Teresa]

Holy smokes!
Does that man know his cars or what?!

Great information nephew....
Pssssttt.....(( I loved my foreign made cars.. ..they just never gave us any problems what so ever.. ) 0
sorry.

[dnalexander]

Mtcookson great post I appreciate all the effort it takes to write such a long informative post. I think if we put all this info together it shows just how much that all cars no matter the nameplate are truly global products. Not much difference in American Toyota or American GM as far as where the parts and labor come from.