However, how much longer is the public going to purchase 16 mpg cars of any label? Five years? Ten?

RWD V8s have been the sporting sedan standard for Christmases Past and Present. In Christmas Future, we get to open more and more high performance presents whose cost to operate will make 16 mpg look silly.

Accordingly, Hyundai’s decision not to launch a new $2B brand around a 16 mpg sedan makes sense. But it will also surely hurt sales of the Genesis as others have noted.

Given that 2008 will be year of “no year-end bonus” in the financial services industry, I’ll bet that, come January, the Hyundai Genesis won’t look half bad.

Good Luck Hyundai !!

With a $38,000 price, it competes against those cars whether Hyundai wants it to or not.

It is not the manufacturer who chooses the competition. That decision is left to the consumer.

That’s why this thing is destined for rental lots with that badge and that price. Either raise the badge or lower the price, there is no third alternative.

There was a lot of skepticism about Lexus. Who would be fulled by buying a re-badged Toyota when they could have a real European marque?

Over time a new generation came up, and the Lexus rep gradually grew.

Hyundai in the US is almost in the exact same place Toyota was then- maybe not totally mainstream, but with a growing group of loyalists and a growing grudging admiration from the press.

Hyundai has exactly as much chance making it with Genesis now as Toyota did with Lexus then. Except Hyundai has made a business decision that the expense of re-branding, and all its associated start up, retail, and network costs are not worth it.

In 20 years we’ll see if they were successful. Lexus obviously was. Infiniti maybe among a few, at least recently when it swerved to target BMW. Acura, unfortunately, has lost its soul.

The Hyundai DOES seem to be better than all of the previously mentioned competition for comfort, features, warranty and frankly build quality. (I cannot believe I just typed that about a Hyundai).

I really feel where Hyundai may fall down in this project is dealer sales experience / service experience. Hyundai dealerships are all about moving low-profit margin cars. They make money on volume. A Genesis buyer deserves more, and will expect more. Same for service. It better be red-carpet or forget it.

I think others have been honest in this regard to, but… BMW’s service experience for me was ok but not great. Mercedes was always terrible and you could not cough in the dealer without spending $1000. For me now, Saab certainly leaves something to be desired. They just simply must get this right or the project will fail.

Hyundai has come a long way in improving its products, but is still abysmally ignorant of other business functions, such as human resource management, and branding and marketing. Until they learn how to better manage people and marketing, they are going to remain a second-tier auto maker.

There is a reason why companies such as Toyota created luxury brands to sell luxury cars — because branding is an important tool for validating the price point in the minds of consumers. Hyundai has established itself as a maker of mainstream cars, sold at a discount. This car clashes with the brand message — the Phaeton analogy is a good one.

Samsung LCD/plasma’s are top notch and have been for the last 2 generations. Check out http://www.avsforum.com/ for really good technical info on all brands.

If you are talking about Samsung and LG cell phones, okay. Plasmas and big ticket entertainment products? They are still deserving of bad mouthing.

If this were only about selling Genesises (?) and future luxury cars from Korea, creating a new marque would be a wise investment. It isn’t about that. The Genesis in the US is Hyundai’s strategic investment into raising Hyundai to Toyota/Honda/Nissan reputation levels – and also serves to provide more breathing room for Kia. The beauty of it is that Hyundai can still decide to invest in creating a luxury marque later if it chooses to. All they need to do is allow existing Genesis owners to service their cars at the new dealerships to make everyone happy.

Don’t forget that the Genesis also has an important goal for Hyundai in its domestic market. Korean automobiles have not been looked upon very favorably in Korea (hm, where have I heard that situation before?). The Genesis replaces the stodgy Equus sedan (which wasn’t even pure Korean, being a Mitsubishi collaboration) with a good luxury sedan that provides Korean buyers with a domestic option they can be proud of. To put it another way, it’s the CTS of Korea.

I remember the LS400 intro. $24,000 for a car of that caliber was ludicrous. They had to be losing $$ on each one.

If memory serves correctly, the LS400 started at $39,900 in 1991 with Cloth seats, not $24k. The $25000 barrier for a Japanese car was broken a few years earlier by the first generation Acura Legend. Still a helluva deal. I have actually seen one LS400 with cloth interior, but only one. (the cloth was nice…)

Exactly.

Most sensible buyers are turned-off by a bunch of BS hype over a product that they KNOW exactly how they intend on using.
When they buy a Lexus they are simply buying a “luxury” car that looks nice, is well built, has real value that is proven at resale, and is full of all the features they want (that actually work RIGHT). On top of that the dealers are more concerned with how the actual costumers feels about the car they purchased as opposed to to drinking their manufacturers own marketing cool-aide and thinking the costumer should be honored to have purchased a less than reliable expensive snob-mobile.

Lexus understands that their costumers are buying cars NOT membership in a “special” driving club.

It’s deceptively simple. Lexus costs a lot, therefore, if you can buy one, you instantly get some snob factor.

BMW tries to sell expensive cars as “the ultimate drivng machine” even though 90% of Bimmer drivers will never push the car any harder than my mother pushes her Impala.

MB tries (or used to) to sell its engineering prowess.

IOW, other luxyury makers always give the customer some other “reason” for buying the car. Lexus doesn’t. Lexus simply says -”Hey, this has been engineered by the same people who make the Camry, but we’re charging a lot for it, (and it’s worth it) so if it’s in your driveway, your neighbors will be envious – or at least they’ll know you have as much money as they do.

Lexus is the only honest luxury car maker. There is only one reason to buy it instead of a Toyota – to prove to the world that you are somebody.

Well, actually, great dealer service is a 2nd reason to buy one.

Before Lexus, Toyota had already built up a league of die-hard Toyota loyalist that were in love with that brand and were actually looking for better more expensive Toyotas.

While Hyundai is undeniably an “up and comer” today they have NOT built-up a reputation or loyal following the way Toyota had. The mistake with the Genasis is that Hyundai launched it before they brought the new RWD Tiburon to market. The RWD Tiburon IS the break out car for Hyundai that can draw away costumers from Toyota, Honda, and Nissan because it is essentially a product that none of them have to sell now.

Big Luxury cars tend to sell to established mature folks that do care about “qualtiy” and a reputation of “reliabilty” It is the younger dudes, making a decent amount of coin for their age that will “make the jump” to Hyundai for a sports car. This is the strategy that has worked wonders for the Acura, Infiniti, and Lexus brands and has serverd the parent companies very well. Hyundai appears to be missing that point.

It is important to remember that the most expensive Japanese cars were all sportcars (300zx, Supra, Starion, RX7)until the arrival of Lexus and Infiniti in 1990.

Hyundai needs to ask itself why folks did not bite on the bait offered up with the Azera, and consider that the Maxima and Cressida were both extremely successfully product before we had a Q45 or LS430.

Idk, but at least it’s a good halo car. A luxury car in its own right? Not there yet!

Genesis conjures up mental images of Dr Carol Marcus, of Sonic the Hedgehog and of those scary puppet videos. Sehr 80’s. The name itself may turn the buying public off.

Why was Journey derided as a product name when this name is just as passé?