Daihatsu Says Sayonara To Europe
Toyota’s minicar subsidiary Daihatsu is leaving Europe. Daihatsu will end auto sales in Europe on Jan. 31, 2013, The Nikkei [sub] reports. Reason given: “The yen’s strength has made exporting vehicles from Japan next to impossible.”
Daihatsu had never shifted production to Europe. They exported their cars from Japan, all 19,300 of them sold in Europe in 2010. (The ACEA statistics don’t even list Daihatsu anymore.) That’s down from 58,600 units Daihatsu had sold in Europe in 2007.
Daihatsu is not the only Japanese company that is falling on hard times in Europe. You think the Japanese have a problem with the strong yen versus the Dollar? Nothing compared to the strong Yen versus the weak Euro. Add to that European car sales that are in the doldrums, and you have a recipe for abandoning all hope.
While the European market had shrunk by only 5.5 percent in 2010, many large name Japanese manufacturers are double digit casualties: Toyota -17.4 percent, Suzuki -23.1 percent, Honda -23.9 percent, Mazda -13.9 percent.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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Too bad for the euroweenies. Daihatsu makes a tough little car. The company also takes its customer commitment pretty seriously-20 years after pulling out of the U.S. , there is still a Daihatsu sponsored help line (www. Daihatsu-help.com) for a market that they were only involved in for 5 model years. Would love to see some of the spare capacity in the U.S. dedicated to the production of their supermini models in order to give some of us more marketplace choices.Alas, Wall Street would deem the profit margins unacceptable.
Pity. I'd had hopes that we'd see more Daihatsus as Scions, but Toyota doesn't seem to want to play the loss-leader game.
Nice cars, they even offered a small open 2-seater (Copen: http://www.daihatsu.de/opencms/opencms/sites/daihatsu/de/de/models/copen/index/).
This is sad news. I have a Daihatsu Copen and it´s a rock solid little car.