Huntley Room 321, 10:10-11:05 and 1:20pm-3:25pm, Monday – Friday. I’ve linked this site to the Autos and Economics site on Google’s blogspot. We have 3…
Economics 244 website: Spring 2013
Posted in Posts, and Syllabus Schedule
Category: Posts
auto industry picking up
Posted in auto industry, Economics 244, Posts, UMTRI, upturn, and washington and lee university
Smitka and Ruggles are keeping busy with auto industry functions. The posts of Ruggles reflect on occasion discussions at one or another specialized industry conference…
New Media, New Marketing
Posted in advertising, market research, new media, Posts, and television
Jack Poor, Guest Post Which media most affects consumer behavior in the Automobile purchase cycle? With the explosion of new and different media options today,…
JDPA Quality: Interpreting Correctly
Posted in JD Powers and Associates, JDPA, Posts, purchaser experience, quality, and rankings
…be it 71 or 149 defects per car, purchasers’ experience is identical: 1 defect… In terms of quality, we are fortunately decades away from 1980,…
JDPower Quality Ranking and Statistical significance
Posted in average quality, confirmation bias, dealership effect, JD Power, Lexus, margin of error, Posts, quality survey, ranking, selection bias, statistical significance, and Toyota
…is JDPower more reliable than Republican pollsters?…
JDPower’s latest quality survey reports a gradual (but over time substantial) improvement in vehicles sold in the US, averaging 126 customer-reported defects per 100 vehicles, versus 216 for 2007. That recent vehicles are better than those of a decade ago matches casual observation of new and used cars. But JDPowers also reports numbers by brand, resulting in a ranking widely reported by the media and (when the rank is high) echoed in advertising. (See for example the Feb 13 story in Automotive News.
Toyota as Number One
Posted in General Motors, GM, number one, Posts, profit margins, return on assets, sales ranking, Toyota, Volkswagen, and VW
…remember Japan as Number One?… I’m just back from a meeting of the Japan Foundation American Advisory Board, where part of the discussion was on…
The End of Luxury Margins
Posted in BMW, Cadillac, Lexus, Lincoln, luxury, margins, NVH, Posts, profit margins, and status symbols
…luxury at low cost is a potential disaster for the industry… Diana Kurylko at Automotive News has a front-page story in the January 21st issue…
Henry Ford, A Documentary
Posted in American Experience, autosandeconomics, documentary, Ford, PBS, Posts, Ruggles, and Smitka
Public Broadcasting Service Premiere of American Experience Presents Henry Ford Tuesday, January 29th, 2013 9:00 – 11:00 PM on PBS – A Review by David…
Velocity Overdrive, the Road to Reinvention
Posted in Auto Dealer, auto manufacturer, Dale Pollak, OEM, Pollak, Posts, pre-owned, Provision, Retail Recon, Ruggles, technology, used cars, vAuto, and Wards Dealer Business
A Book Review by David Ruggles and comments in italic by Mike Smitka Dale Pollak’s third book, “Velocity Overdrive,” is another winner and is must…