Jeep Gives Away Wrangler Via Twitter

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Follow Jeep on Twitter and this Wrangler could be yours (Chrysler).

The 2010 New York International Auto Show (NYIAS) opens at the Jacob Javits Center on April 2 and runs through April 11. The show will once again host some of the hottest cars and trucks around, with several new concepts, and plenty of new '10 and '11 production models being shown for the first time. While most people who go to an auto show come away happy, there are going to be several folks at this year's show who are going to be ecstatic. One of them will even drive away in a brand new car.

The reasons is Jeep will be hosting a Tweet-to-Win Contest, rewarding five fast-fingered individuals with a free trip for two to the NYIAS. Even better, when they get to the show on April 1, they will get a chance to win a brand new 2010 Jeep Wrangler Islander Edition.

Entering is simple, especially if you already have a Twitter account. The official rules can be found here but basically it's a trivia contest via Twitter. Just go to http://twitter.com/jeep and follow Jeep, then answer a question correctly when they post questions. A new winner will be selected each day through this Friday.

If you're the first to reply during the contest, you and a friend could be on your way to New York. Don't forget to include @Jeep, and #NYIAS hashtags in your reply.

Once at the show, the five contestants will be led to a giant sandbox, where a “Golden Tiki” has been buried. The first participant to find the little statue gets the keys to that 2010 Jeep Wrangler Islander Edition.

The Islander package includes 32-inch off-roading tires on 17-inch Moab wheels, a special cloth interior with surf blue inserts and embroidered logo, a unique Tiki/Islander hood emblem, leather-wrapped steering wheel, side steps and Mopar rubber floor mats. The last time Jeep offered an Islander edition was twenty years ago and this update is just as fun and flashy.

Click over to Jeep's official Twitter feed for your chance to win. And remember to follow AOL Autos on Twitter here.

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Edmunds' CEO Gives Consumers A Voice On CAFE

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By Jeremy Anwyl October 12, 2011

The proposed Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards are the subject of a Congressional hearing Wednesday, and I will be testifying. Congressman Jim Jordan, who chairs the House Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs, Stimulus Oversight and Government Spending, will lead the hearing, which carries the official title of “Running on Empty: How the Obama Administration’s Green Energy Gamble will Impact Small Business and Consumers.” I will be testifying as to the consumer angle. But there will also be some interesting testimony covering the process by which the standards were developed. It seems regulatory agencies must follow certain rules when making rules, with the Administrative Procedures Act, being one. Apparently, the deal President Obama announced might not have all its procedural “I’s” dotted and “Ts” crossed.

It is also interesting how the emphasis with CAFE is shifting from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHSTA) to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA.)  Part of this is because the EPA has far greater leeway when drafting rules than does NHSTA.  Another factor is that it was the EPA waiver granted to the California Air Resources Board that created the leverage for the Administration to get the automakers on board.  When you look at what has been released about the proposed standards, emissions do seem to be taking precedence over mpg.

A fair amount of this is political theater, but there should be enough substance to make things interesting.  After the hearings I will file a commentary with my impressions. Meanwhile, here is my submitted testimony:

Chairman Jordan, Ranking Member Kucinich and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to speak today on this most important issue. I have been tracking the progress of these soon-to-be proposed CAFE standards with a growing level of concern. Some of this concern comes from a conviction that setting standards -- which are essentially a set of manufacturing quotas -- is a poor way to achieve the worthwhile goal of reducing emissions.

CAFE also seems to be growing ever more complex, a recipe sure to yield inefficiency and unintended outcomes.

My comments this morning will focus on one particular concern. One we at Edmunds think about everyday and that is the automotive consumer.

I have three points to make this morning.

The first is that -- up until now -- consumers have been either ignored or misrepresented.

The second is that consumers matter.

The third is that consumers are definitely not on board.

The evidence that consumers have been ignored is everywhere. One of the clearest is this interim technical assessment prepared by EPA that listed the CAFE stakeholders. These included environmental groups, auto firms, labor unions, etc.  Even EV charging firms were seen as needing a seat at the table. But not the consumer.

Consumers matter because responding to their needs is what drives innovation and innovation is what should drive our economy. They matter because at the end of the day, they are the ones who will be asked to buy and drive the vehicles our government is potentially demanding the car companies build.

Most importantly, let me emphasize the consumer is not on board with the proposed standards. Now, I know there have been polls showing consumers “want” higher mileage standards. These polls are worse than meaningless; they are grossly misleading. Instead of polls, we should first and foremost be guided by what consumers are actually doing; by actual purchases. In the U.S. market, consumers have demonstrated a marked preference for larger vehicles, illustrated by sales as recently as last month.

Even when we look at sales within each segment, we see that sales are skewed towards vehicles with lower MPG.

A particular caution exists around the new, higher tech/higher mileage vehicles that have been introduced -- the very vehicles that the administration seems determined to mandate through the proposed CAFE standards. In these instances, it is not the car company that has not been “getting it.” They are delivering the goods. It is the consumer that is not interested.

In several cases cars are selling slowly even after large tax credits have been offered.  Further evidence of the consumer’s lack of sensitivity to fuel economy can be seen from the low take rates of hybrids for models with both standard and hybrid power trains available. Typical is the sales spilt for the Toyota Camry. The standard Camry, with 26 combined mpg, sold over 313,000 vehicles last year, the hybrid version, with a combined mpg of 33, only added less than 15,000. (For a share of sales of less than 5%.)

We also have to consider the possibility that the market demand for EVs and hybrids is already being met.  This would suggest that future offerings would not grow overall sales; they will just be shared among a greater number of models.

Any study of actual sales makes clear that—for the vast majority of consumers—fuel economy is simply not their primary motivating factor when purchasing a vehicle. It doesn’t mean they don’t care about fuel economy—just that other things are far more important.

Consumers decide which vehicle to buy based on a weighing of vehicle features and a judgment on which set of features best meets their needs. In other words, they make trade-offs. Price and fuel economy, for most consumers, represent costs. Passenger capacity, cargo space, towing ability, etc. represent features. Consumers are happy to pay less, or save fuel, but not if it means giving up features they deem important. This is key.

Edmunds can add a special clarity around this issue of consumer preferences and demand. Among our many data sets, we have a market simulation model that was developed working with leading academics.   This simulator can also be used to show how consumers weight various vehicle attributes in terms of importance. Following are the results of an analysis we ran for this committee.  Note that vehicle mileage accounts for only about 6% of why consumers purchased a particular vehicle.

As you would expect, the weighting does vary among vehicle categories.

An argument has been made that consumers are better off with higher standards because any higher prices paid for vehicles will be made up for through savings at the pump. Any such conclusion depends heavily on the premium paid, the price of fuel and even if the consumer will own the vehicle long enough to enjoy any notional net savings.

Looking at the models where there is a hybrid and standard powertrain option, the current payback period runs between 6-9 years.

Math aside, consumers demand payback periods far shorter than any models suggest will be forthcoming.  Our market model shows that over half of consumers demand a payback period of 12 months, or less.  Some might find this frustratingly irrational. My view is that it just shows that most consumers are not making purchase decisions based on fuel economy.

An obvious factor that can influence these consumer weightings of mileage importance is the price of fuel.  I have seen that when fuel prices jump there is an increase in the number of consumers who consider smaller vehicles and in some cases buy them. But these effects are not as dramatic as I have seen claimed. Further, they have been short-lived as consumers have quickly shifted back to larger vehicles, either because they grew accustomed to the higher price, fuel prices dropped, or a bit of both.

Looking at this data, an argument can be made that if fuel prices increased sufficiently, market demand could align with future CAFE standards. This is an interesting point but the increase—around a doubling of today’s price—would need to be far higher than even the most extreme forecasts deem likely. And we should also consider the chance that fuel prices in the mid-term could actually be lower than prices seen today.

I do have some good news: looking back, the auto industry seems to have delivered the impossible. They have added features, increased safety, elevated performance—and delivered increased fuel economy. Much of this during a period when CAFE standards were stable. I credit mostly the advance of technology and expect this progress to continue. But if mandates trigger an escalation of prices, a reduction in consumer utility or the adoption of technologies before they have been proven, consumers will react.  We saw this play out before in the late Seventies and early Eighties when the domestic auto industry, torn between mandates for greater fuel efficiency and consumer demand for larger vehicles, introduced a generation of truly awful vehicles. The reputational damage from this era lingers today.

Push too far, too fast and we could easily destabilize an industry that is a vital engine of our collective prosperity.

Jeremy Anwyl:  Chief Executive Officer of Edmunds.com. Follow @JeremyAnwyl on Twitter.

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Toyota Gives Customers $500 During Its Tweetathon

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Toyota is giving customers $500 simply for tweeting (Toyota).

Toyota has taken to Twitter to promote its latest end-of-year sale, offering its customers the potential to get five hundred bucks, just for tweeting this: "If I get my new Toyota during Toyotathon they'll give me $500 just for this Tweet. http://buyatoyota.com @Toyota #shareathon."

"If you get your new Toyota by January 3rd, you can earn a $500 pre-paid debit card, just for Tweeting about it," according to Toyota's Twitter page. "Until December 15th, the Twitter users with the fastest fingers can get one of 250 certificates available each day."

While I'm usually all for companies taking to social media to engage their customers, this is one instance where I'm left wanting. Earlier this year, I wrote about how Toyota's recall woes were made worse because it had largely ignored the social networking space. Had the company understood the power of that medium it would have realized that active, personal participation would have gone a long way to quelling fears, responding to concerns, and directing people to the appropriate places to get answers and help. Instead, Toyota was late to the game and used "canned" responses, which created little satisfaction to concerned owners.

I asked a Toyota spokeswoman if this new Twitter campaign came about as a result of its experience during the recalls of the past year and didn't get a satisfactory response. At least it appears that the company is trying to figure out what works and what doesn't in the social space, which is a good thing. But the unfortunate reality is that this promotion comes across more like spam than anything that engages the consumer in a dialogue. It's great that customers get money back once they buy a new car, that is, if they were one of the lucky 250 each day that actually got the certificate and they manage to take delivery of their car by January 3rd. But is this enough to make you a fan of the brand? Is the rather small incentive worthwhile or energizing? Would it make you think highly of the brand and tell others about it?

Using social marketing is one thing ,but the message is key. It is no secret that in the past year, Toyota has not seen its sales recover as much other carmakters. There are plenty of thoughts on why this has happened. One is that the recalls have tarnished Toyota's quality image. Another is that it has lacked any significant or exciting product launches. A third is that the competition has really stepped it up and have stolen some of the excitement -- and sales -- as a result.

Likely, all of these and more have been factors, and Toyota has reacted by increasing its sales incentives. In fact, Toyota's average auto incentive rate in November of 2010 was up about 10 percent from the previous year, and yet it was one of the few carmakers to show a year-over-year loss in sales.

In the past, Toyota would have likely stayed the course, kept incentives low, managed its production to match the slowing demand and remained on top where it counts, in profits and customer satisfaction. But it seems that the pressures of the past few years have pushed the company towards more distressed marketing, like this Shareathon Tweeting campaign.

When I worked at Ford and then Chrysler, we were often in awe of the discipline that Toyota managed to have when it came to sales incentives and the accompanying sales events. The former Big 3 were big on pushing out a sales event whenever the forecast showed the slightest downturn, while Toyota was a "steady as she goes" company, always looking beyond the 30-day horizon to the long-term effects of its marketing. Toyota seemed to realize what we didn't or wouldn't acknowledge: that once you train the customer to expect that they can get your car for less than the sticker, you can never, ever go back and ask them to pay full price.

Today though, Toyota seem to offer up sales events with as great a frequency as its Detroit rivals. The amounts it offers have gone up too, and now it's offering these deals, unique as they may be, in new places. Has Toyota finally picked up Detroit's bad habits? I hope not. So while I applaud the effort to engage people in new ways, in new places, I wish Toyota would engage in a way that didn't say "desperate for a sale".

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Beijing Gives Nissan OK To Export Leaf To China

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By Scott Doggett September 15, 2011

Nissan Motor Co. has received permission from Beijing to sell its Leaf (above) battery-electric vehicle (BEV) in China and is prepared to do so, the head of the company's Chinese venture said Wednesday. Speaking with reporters at Nissan's headquarters in Yokohama, Japan, Kimiyasu Nakamura, president of Dongfeng Motor Co., said Nissan will be the first to import an electric vehicle to China. However, Nakamura did not say when the imports will begin. Nissan, Japan's second-largest automaker, currently builds the sleek four-door hatchback in Oppama, Japan, and plans to add output in Tennessee and the U.K. "If sales numbers of the Leaf go up, we may discuss producing the Leaf in China," Nakamura said.

Nissan began selling the Leaf last December and had sold about 11,000 Leafs globally as of mid-July, according to company statement. The carmaker plans to introduce seven additional electric models by fiscal 2016 and is targeting sales of 1.5 million electric vehicles over the next six years along with its French partner, Renault SA. "The Leaf does not hit the Chinese market's sweet spot now, in terms of price, but that will change as unit sales grow," Nakamura said. He said the company's long-term goal would be manufacturing the Leaf in China. China is Nissan's largest market, where it has a 6.2 percent share. Nissan, which also plans to launch a lower-priced electric vehicle designed for the Chinese market, is targeting annual sales in China of 2.3 million units in 2015, up from 1.3 million last year.

Nissan announced earlier this week that it would soon start selling the Leaf in Sweden. European deliveries of the all-electric model have already begun in the U.K., The Netherlands, Ireland, Portugal and France. Order books have also opened in Switzerland, Spain and Belgium with customers in those markets expected to start receiving their cars shortly. Norway and Denmark have announced sales will start in autumn. The first deliveries in Sweden are expected to start at the first quarter of 2012.

Scott Doggett:  is an AutoObserver.com Associate Editor.

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