Quote:
Originally Posted by GullFoss
The middle has hollowed out in our society. And we've seen brands do the same to meet changing tastes. Either people want dollar stores and Walmarts or Nordstrom and Tiffany. McDonald's or Caesers. CRVs or Q5s. Ikea or c&b.
In the car world, the biggest move to me was VW going down market. They saw the middle hollowing out and cut the quality/costs out of their Jettas and golfs to become an economy company .
I'm sure part of the story is that Nissan just kept trying to stay in the middle while competitors either focused on cost or luxury. In a lot of ways their the only company in that space. But does anyone care about that space?
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That's a neat take. What complicates things for Nissan, though, is the down-market brands like Hyundai are now very nice. And I'd take a Genesis way before I'd buy anything from Infiniti. Nissan may have been trying to stay in the middle, but part of the problem is the bottom rose past them. They have inadvertently put themselves at the absolute ass end of the auto industry, but aren't priced accordingly.
I actually like the direction VW has gone. Audi is their take on upmarket. VW doesn't need to be so close to that standard and their new lower pricing (commiserate with what are now lower end vehicles) offers great value for reasonably good German cars.