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This paper is being submitted on August 2, 2017, for Jeremy Rawkins course.
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WHY MANY AMERICANS PREFER FOREIGN CARS?
The battle among car brands started a long time ago, and we should get some
information about their history. According to Woodford (2016), a German named Karl
Benz promoted the first automobile powered by gas in 1886 which by that time was
reliable, but costly. Meanwhile, by that time also, an American engineer named Henry
Ford appeared with a new thought that cars should be affordable for everyone, and
created the Model T. After that, the world was never the same again with so many car
brands trying to conquer the universe of vehicles. Just as an example, Ford, Chevrolet,
Fiat-Chrysler also called here in America as FCA, are the big three in the America.
Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, and BMW are the big three from Germany. Japan has
Toyota, Nissan, and Honda. As a result of so many brands here in America, there are
more than forty automakers selling cars in the market, and when the time comes to buy
a brand-new car, or just to trade the old one for a newer vehicle we may get lost with so
many cars available. As a result of that, the quality, safety, style, efficiency, and other
stereotypes are put on the table to help into this decision. Moreover, this essay will
provide some reasons of why many Americans prefer foreign cars instead of domestic
ones.
The first reason that Americans prefer foreign cars is due to the better quality,
especially presented in German and Asian brands. According to J.D Power (2017), an
American global marketing company that conducts surveys of customer satisfaction for
product quality ranked cars divided by many categories starting on small cars and going
through until the best large premium sport utility vehicles (SUV). This rank has twenty-
three categories which have 65 cars from the USA and 125 from outside brands.
Moreover, the foreign cars won in sixteen categories and brands such as Kia has
received five awards and BMW/Mini received four being the auto brands with the most
winners among the foreign ones. As a consequence of this predominance, American car
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WHY MANY AMERICANS PREFER FOREIGN CARS?
brands just won seven categories and Chevrolet with four awards mostly because of the
large pickups. Therefore, Americans car brands may produce suitable products for the
market lately, but just as was shown, Germany and Asia are still building the best cars
in the world and especially for the American market which is one of the most
consumers.
Reports is a non-profit organization that also produces a rank with the ratings of brands
sold in the USA. Recently, the Consumer Reports (2016) ranked twenty-nine auto
brands where they also show the number of models of each brand followed by the score
of each one according to them and the place that each brand was occupying in 2015.
Not surprisingly, seven Asian brands are in the top ten, with only one division of
Chevrolet called Buick in the third position. At the same time, Chevrolet and FORD are
in the middle of the list with FCA brands staying in the last place.
Another thing that may cause that type of choice and change peoples mind is
about the safety of foreign cars that are safer than domestic ones. The organization that
is famous for providing reliable ratings of security is the Insurance Institute for
Highways Safety (IIHS) that annually produces reports of evaluations about cars in the
world. The most rigorous kind of assessment was launched in 2013 called Top Safety
Pick+, however, in 2016 they improved it to measure beyond the regular crash test, but
also the vision that the car provides at night time with the headlights on. Therefore, the
IIHS still has another rank called Top Safety Pick that is rating vehicles since 2006, but
in this type of evaluation, the night vision test is not included. According to them in
awards of Top Safety Pick+ of a total of thirty-eight cars among several brands.
Meanwhile, American manufacturers received only three awards. In the other type of
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WHY MANY AMERICANS PREFER FOREIGN CARS?
consequence, Americans brands lose their power against the imported ones.
The design is also taken into consideration when people are looking for a car to
buy, causing then another reason for Americans chose an imported car. When we talk
about how amazing the design of any car is, our first thought is Ferrari, Rolls-Royce,
Range Rover, Aston Martin, Jaguar, Lamborghini, Porsche, and a lot of others auto
brands that produce truly masterpieces of design. According to WCA (2017), our
thoughts are not wrong just as in the past two years, Jaguar, and Mazda dominated the
awards of the World Car Design of the Year. As a result of this, brands from America
such as Ford and Chevrolet sometimes cant compete equally with them, even though
Cadillac is creating some amazing designs lately with the new Cadillac CT6, which
went to the final of the awards but didnt win. Besides these awards, it is undeniable
that the designs of the large pickups and SUV from FORD, Chevrolet, Cadillac are also
stunning since they are so big too. As consequence of this, FORD and Chevrolet large
trucks are the most vehicles sold here in America; however, just this does not support
Also as a possible cause is that international brands may have better fuel
efficiency numbers since a long time ago making again American people look for an
imported car instead of a domestic one. Nowadays, for the consequence of the incentive
to buy cars more ecologically correct, people may prefer brands with low CO2
emissions. Mazda, Honda, Nissan, Hyundai, and many others foreign auto brands
usually have better numbers according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
(2016). On the other hand, the big three auto brands from America lead the list of most
thirsty vehicles in the past three years. However, Tesla a company from the USA is
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WHY MANY AMERICANS PREFER FOREIGN CARS?
doing a great job with their full electrical cars that are making successful across the
world just as they are mighty and have a high range with a single charge.
In another way of perspective, the biggest effect is the loss of revenue of taxes
coming from domestic manufacturers. According to the Taylor and Rinke (2017), on
January of 2017, Germans reported that Trump attacked the fact that Germans brands
are damaging the U.S manufactory industry. Trumps states that "If you want to build
cars in the world, then I wish you all the best. You can build cars for the United States,
but for every car that comes to the USA, you will pay 35 percent tax". In response, the
German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel said that rather than trying to penalize
Germany, the USA should try to build better and more desirable cars. To confirm that,
Trop (2016) published and commented the annual choices made by World Car Awards
in 2016 which announced the brands that were in the finals which six are from Asia,
seven are from Europe, and just only one is from America. In 2017 the scenario
changes, being thirteen brands in the finals from Europe, two from Asia, and again only
one from America. The curious fact is that in both years the only American car
represented was the Chevrolet Volt, even though it was not the winner of its category.
All the causes showed in this study such as quality, reliability, safety, design,
and fuel efficiency led Americans to prefer imported cars instead of domestic ones.
Moreover, these causes had reflected in threats from Trump to overseas brands as an
effect of the loss of revenue over the tax. However, with this history of lower quality
and reliability, Americans dont think twice about choosing a foreign car.
Reference
Consumer Reports. (2016, October 24). Car Brands Reliability: How They Stack Up.
reliability/car-brands-reliability-how-they-stack-up/
Emissions, and Fuel Economy Trends Report Overview. Retrieved July 26,
J.D. Power. (2017, June 21). Segments & Award Recipients. Retrieved July 20, 2017,
from http://www.jdpower.com/cars/awards/Initial-Quality-Study-by-
Segment/2410ENG
Insurance Institute for Highway Safety & Highway Loss Data Institute (IIHS). (2016,
December 8). 82 winners for 2017. Retrieved July 20, 2017, from
http://www.iihs.org/iihs/news/desktopnews/in-the-best-light-2017-top-safety-
pick-winners-meet-new-headlight-criteria
Taylor, E., & Rinke, A. (2017, January 17). Trump threatens German carmakers with 35
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-germany-autos-idUSKBN1500VJ
Trop, J. (2016, March 30). These Are The Best Cars In The World Right Now
(According To World Car Awards Jurors). Retrieved July 24, 2017, from
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jaclyntrop/2016/03/30/these-are-the-best-cars-in-
the-world-right-now-according-to-world-car-awards-jurors/#17cb8fb468f4
WCA. (2017). World Car Awards - 2017 Voting Results. Retrieved July 24, 2017, from
http://www.wcoty.com/web/2017_results.asp
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WHY MANY AMERICANS PREFER FOREIGN CARS?
Woodford, C. (2016, November 13). History of cars: The story of automobiles from
http://www.explainthatstuff.com/historyofcars.html