If you're still not convinced that Hyundai-Kia is a force to be reckoned with, take a look at the latest sales numbers. Hyundai-Kia has passed Ford as the fourth-largest automaker in the world by outselling the Blue Oval gang over the first half of 2009. At the end of 2008, Hyundai-Kia was trailing Ford by roughly 1 million annual sales. As of the half-way point in 2009, though, Hyundai-Kia outsold Ford by 8,000 units with 2.153 million sales globally to Ford's 2.145 million. Of the top 10 automakers by sales volume, Ford has had the worst year so far, seeing worldwide sales drop by 30.6%.
While the folks at Hyundai-Kia are no doubt happy with their latest upset, they now find themselves in a similar predicament. As of the midway point, Hyundai-Kia trailed third-place automaker Volkswagen by nearly 1 million sales. While conquering Ford was made easier by Ford's own sales drop, Volkswagen won't be such an easy target, as its sales are only down 5.1% this year.
Up at the top of the leader board, it's a similar story. Toyota made history earlier this year by unseating GM as the world's largest automaker, but its reign may be cut short. GM trailed Toyota by only 12,000 sales at the halfway mark and despite its bankruptcy issues, has posted a smaller sales decline over 2008. Bolstered by its huge success in China, GM's worldwide sales were only down 21.8% compared to Toyota's 26% decline. Toyota isn't likely to take this lying down, though. The company's new president has already made a commitment to more passionate vehicles that he hopes will rekindle sales. Will it make a difference come December? We'll just have to wait and see.
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-----The orginal Mr.Goodwrench on the JBO since 11/99-----
Funny, i recall GM chairman Rick Wagoneer saying GM would never survive bankruptcy. It would shame the name and the entire brand would go down in flames.
Hmmmmm.
Someone should fire that guy....wait. never mind.
"Formerly known as Jammit - JBO member since 1998" JBOM | CSS.net
Someone was mentioning something about this to me, and said that Hyundai-Kia was stacking their numbers, by a margin of their sales being toward fleet vehicles. Now I don't know how true this is, but I do recall Ford being a big name for selling a large number of vehicles to fleet.
doesnt mean ill drive one.
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Ben (DirtyJ) wrote:doesnt mean ill drive one.
I don't think they are going to cry at the loss of your sale.
Ben (DirtyJ) wrote:doesnt mean ill drive one.
Me either. I've never seen american, japanese or european cars fold up like Kia's do in accidents.
ppl are broke so a cheap car is all they can afford, its no surprise that the cheapest cars on the market are going to sell better
1989 Turbo Trans Am #82, 2007 Cobalt SS G85
RuggedZ wrote:cheap yet well made, with a great warranty is a recipe for success.
Bingo we have a winner. You are right on. After having owned a Kia Rio for 70,000 miles my only complaint was that it was slow. That car took a daily thrashing and a good share of abuse like a champ.
FORGET GIRLS GONE WILD WE HAVE GOVERNMENT SPENDING GONE WILD!
Rodimus Prime wrote:ppl are broke so a cheap car is all they can afford, its no surprise that the cheapest cars on the market are going to sell better
kia has come a looooong way in the past 10 years, thats for sure. but in the end they are simply disposable, cheap cars.
around here you can get a brand new kia for about $5k! 13k msrp - 3k off from the dealer and then they had been offering 4k on any trade in with those "push-pull-or-drag your car in" things, but upped it to 4500 with the cash for clunkers program. so for $5498 you can get a brand new car with a 10-year, 100k mile warranty. thats their selling point, not their quality.
ill be impressed when their lineup consists of mostly genesis-like cars with optima-like prices.
I just shat myself from the Commodore crashtest
Mr.Goodwrench-G.T. wrote:
Oh look a Korean car in a crash test.
mitdr774 wrote:Mr.Goodwrench-G.T. wrote:
Oh look a Korean car in a crash test.
Yeah and don't you find it interesting that Mr. Goodwrench GT only posted GM vehicle crash test pics, not a single japanese or european or Ford or Chrysler, just singles out GM. He seems a to be a bit of a hypocrite since his sig includes GM brand names.
Only because you said you never seen an American car fold up. So there you go. No hypocrisy, just pointing out a fact that American cars can fold up too, no matter what sig I use.
And yes it is a Daewoo and made in Korean, but if you associate Kia/Hyundai with Daewoo, then you must be dumb enough to associate GM with Ford.
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-----The orginal Mr.Goodwrench on the JBO since 11/99-----
Mr.Goodwrench-G.T. wrote:Only because you said you never seen an American car fold up. So there you go. No hypocrisy, just pointing out a fact that American cars can fold up too, no matter what sig I use.
And yes it is a Daewoo and made in Korean, but if you associate Kia/Hyundai with Daewoo, then you must be dumb enough to associate GM with Ford.
He also pointed out European and Jap. cars yet you failed to post any of them. BTW good job on using some old tests. I am sure I could find some pictures of Hyundai and Kia cars from the same year ranges folding up just as bad, if not worse.
Yea, um newer cars sold here doesn't fold up easily period. No matter what brand.
European cars don't fold easy. Thank their higher standards that we didn't have until as of late. So your point?
Sorry to inform you, but two of those car are sold today as new, therefore not old, the other just proves that they were susceptible to fold. Sadly, you got butt hurt on the fact.
And go ahead and find all you want on Kia/Hyundai folding up, I could care less. lol
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-----The orginal Mr.Goodwrench on the JBO since 11/99-----
Notice i said "some old tests"? I know that not all of them are old but a good number of them are not exactly recent. The Holden is from 1992. Not butt hurt as you imply, just pointing out a flaw in your argument.
RuggedZ wrote:cheap yet well made, with a great warranty is a recipe for success.
Bullsh*t. if that were true, why would VDub be ahead of them? Still Korean garbage. After that video posted a while back (showing the building process, etc.), I'd work for them, but I'd show up every day in my Corolla. They could hand me the keys to a brand new Hyundai anything, and give me company credit card to fill it up with and they'd still be in the trash can on the way out. Every single time.
In the end you're buying disposable white goods. Your Hyundai goes in the same category as your first apartment sized washer & dryer from Wal-Mart. Sure, it does what you need it to, but not terribly well, and since you bought it at Wal-Mart, you're going to have to exchange three or four of them before you get one that lasts more than a month or two.
2010 Honda Fit LX
