Is Europe different than the U.S. when it comes to buying cars? Yes and no. I have had the opportunity to read two articles in Autocar that show how cars are purchased and I found it interesting. I hope you do too. Also it seems that they are buying SUVs there in record numbers. I find that really odd. It seems that we export more American culture than we might think.
First let me tell you about an interview with Louis Schweitzer, the chairman and CEO of Renault. Remember that Renault owns Nissan these days. In general I would point out that Americans needing to be satisfied immediately expect to walk into a car dealership and find the car of their desires and buy it. Europe is different. Car dealers there have a small inventory of new cars, mostly only as examples of what the manufacturer makes. The buyer is expected to custom order the car of his choice.
My car buying experiences have been frustrated by this "buy what's there" mandate here. That conflicts with a manufacturer offering a long list of options. How can the dealer anticipate what options I really want on the car of my dreams? Am I really expected to compromise on my desires when it comes to something as expensive as a car? The answer is yes.
Mr. Schweitzer points out that the new Renault Mégane is available in eight body styles, five different engines, four trim levels, and 12 colors. That makes something like 3600 different combinations before even considering options.
He says that there is only one dealer in all of England that has the whole range of Renault cars on display. Only one! The other dealers usually can show only a selection of the core examples of the Renault line, rather than the full choice.
Note the selection of five different engines on a Mégane. We used to have a selection like this on car models sold in the U.S., but no more. This is because of the complex and very expensive certification process that the Environmental Protection Agency places on a car manufacturer for each drivetrain/car model they produce. That is what limits your selection.
The supply chain makes the manufacture of a big range of cars incredibly complex. This even more forces a European manufacturer to make cars custom order. Most dealers don't have the space in cities to display a large number of cars even if they wanted to. Mr. Schweitzer states it positively, "These days we give the customer what they want, rather than selling them a car on the forecourt that doesn't match their exact needs."
Interestingly the Renault target is to build 66% of their cars to order. This is a smaller number than I would expect. England betters that with 72% built to order already. He says that Renault's research shows that a European is generally prepared to wait for three to five weeks for a car they order. Today Renault can supply most models within three weeks. Most people will wait as long as their delivery date is certain. There is nothing worse than being promised that your car will be available on a certain day, and then be frustrated by a long string of delays. Who do you believe when that happens? In order to give the factory and delivery chain some flexibility, Renault specifies a delivery week, not a specific day.
Some of their popular models have longer waiting times for special orders. But then those models won't be available in a dealer's lot anyway.
Renault had a stock internally of 230,000 cars on 31 December. That is the equivalent of 40 days of production. The year before it was 220,000 cars. Marketing people want to have the right number of cars available for delivery because of normal January sales. I wonder how this compares to a U.S. manufacturer's inventory.
SUVs in Europe? Somehow I can't imagine even considering driving a behemoth like a Suburban in the narrow streets of a European city. And parking one? That would seem to be impossible. This doesn't even consider fuel cost which is three to four times what it is here in California.
Wolfgang König writing for Autocar (England) and auto motor und sport (Germany) says that SUVs are becoming increasingly popular in Germany. The German car market was down 12.4% in January, but SUV sales were up by 12.9%, making a market share of 8.5% up from 7.5% last year. How about these justifications for selling SUVs in Germany: BMW X5 up 31.6%, Toyota RAV4 up 34.1%, Porsche Cayenne up 70%, and VW Touareg up 120.6%. In fact, something that should be very worrying to the Porsche board of directors is that Porsche Cayennes now outsell 911s and Boxsters. Porsche is now a truck company rather than a car company.
But why do Germans drive SUVs? Germany is very different than the U.S. when it comes to driving your SUV off road. Of course few Americans ever go off road with theirs, but Germans really can't. As soon as you leave the pavement and head for the great off-road, you are breaking the law. Germans never break the law. Farmers, forestry commissioners, random joggers, and the police combine forces to trace trespassers with the determination of religious zealots.
How do drivers learn to drive their SUVs in Germany? They don't. (Well, they don't here either...) Auto motor und sport recently gathered 50 of their reader-SUV owners to a real off-road exercise. All of them were equipped with serious machinery like Range Rovers to Mercedes G-wagens. And guess what? Not a single one of the 50 had ever had their vehicles off road. Why? The answers usually were either "no opportunity", "car might get scratched", or "not enough guts".
When they were asked why they drove them in the first place, the replies are much of what you here in America: high seating position, safety, space, and driving in wintry weather. Alas, most don't stand up to logical reasoning. "The idea that SUVs are safer than normal cars doesn't become true by repeating it a bunch of times. It wasn't true at the beginning and it isn't true today. Just compare braking distances, for example."
Mr König states further, "And while we have our fair share of ice and snow in southern Germany, I would always prefer to plough my way through in a light car with good winter tires than in a heavy, cumbersome four-wheel drive which, once sliding, will venture far further into the countryside than its owner has ever dreamed of. Not to mention the nuisance that you have to climb on the hood every morning to scratch ice off the windshield."
The real reason to drive a SUV in Germany must be street cred. It certainly isn't fuel economy or good handling. It seems like nothing clears the fast lane of the autobahn more efficiently than a Porsche Cayenne.
