I am currently in Japan as a fareign exchange student living with a host family. Just so happens i lucked out and got a car guy for my host dad too bad he doesnt speak any english and my japanese isnt that great.

anyways, as some of you may know, Lexus just opened up in Japan two days ago (August 31). I was talking about this with my host mom that night (she speaks decent enough english). One thing she did happen to mention is that right now, Japanese people want imports in terms of luxury cars. Remember, in this case imports does not mean Japanese car companies, but as of now German cars as there is a very minimal amount of American cars here.

This brings me to my next point: Should Cadillac step up to the plate and bring over the CTS, BLS, and SRX to Japan? I say those specific models because streets here are narrow... at least half the residential 2 way streets here would barely pass as a one way road in America. And no, im not exaggerating. I have seen a couple suburbans here but they wouldnt be able to go down those residential streets. Also, generally people here have only small 1 car garages. My host family has 2 car garage that they squeeze 3 cars into because it is very deep Im 5'10 and cant stand up inside the garage. It is only about 5'6 or so. These reasons are why i didnt mention cars such as the escalade and deville. STS would really be pushing it size wise. They have Toyota Harriers (lexus rx series) here so thats why i included SRX.

GM would have to come making people believe that not only are their cars luxurious, but high quality, high mpg (very important here), high reliabilty, and high saftey. (which i say they are but GM has to let the people know that). (It seems that GM has become the sleeper company as they dont seem to advertise how efficient they are, etc compared to toyota for example.

Anyone think it could work? the only thing that i would worry about is that Japan is only so large, meaning it isnt as populated as America so there would be a lower amount of product being sold and could be harder to make it a profitable embarkment.

 

I think the European BTS and upcoming BRX would be a good start. I may go as high as CTS but that would be it. I think you would have to look at sales of cars in the CTS's size range before you even thought about it. If they only sell about 10K/year in that size range now I wouldn't even bother.

 

They sell Caddys in Japan now http://www.cadillac.co.jp/

 

So how do you like living in a fareign country so far?

 

Off topic, but I wonder what they think about us bungling this whole huricane fiasco

 

I could be wrong on this so please correct me if I am.
(I don't have any hard facts)

* I thought Japan had very high tariffs for importing cars into Japan. It would make cars like the CTS the price of a GS400 and comparitvely it didn't make sense to the consumer.

* I also thought that there is some 40K kilometer inspection on motors which is a govt. mandate that keeps you buying newer efficient cars instead of running old cars for a long time. (I can't verify this either but people used to talk about this and the JDM motors that was the import tuner craze not too long ago)

I believe that a middle income family would be hard pressed to own a low end "Import" only to have to get another new car in a few years... it would just make financial sense to buy local.

 

some awesome japanese man owned my friends camaro... I've never seen one like it... in order to comply with japanese road rules it had to have side blinkers so it has them, but i've never seen another camaro like it, and after 20k miles it was shipped to america then purchased by my best friend...

but anywho some awesome guy owned that

and thoughts from japan, yea lets go to the homes of our enemys and look em straight in the eye!

 

When I was in Japan last year (not really Japan, but Okinawa) I brought this up on a board, and the few people that said anything thought that it would be a waste of time and effort due to the low volume and high cost. But I don't know. I don't think that they would appeal to that enviorment enough. I know on Oki there werent very many cars on the roads that were as big as the CTS.

 

When I was in Japan, their tax structure all but forced people to buy new cars. The older the vehicle, the higher the tax (registration) paid.

Another thing was the import killing tarriffs on cars. The big reason American cars are view so poorly there is that tarriffs on imported cars drove prices up to what the Japanese domestic luxury cars were selling for at the time. For instance, if a Nissan Lepeord (formerly sold here under a different name as an entry level Infinity) was going for the equivlent of $30,000 the tarriff on a Lumina would drive it to $35,000+, making the Lumina look like overpriced garbage. Meanwhile, BMW, Mercedes, Rolls & Bentley had no problems selling.

Is the tarriff and the reverse tax structure on cars still in place?

I haven't been to Japan for any length of time since '91.

 

I think it is still like that. I never got into any details, but it's close to that. And they make you get a full inspection on your car once a year, or once every two years. The inspection is so strict that it almost makes it impossible for a car more than a few years old to pass. No oil leaks at all, not even a hint of moisture around a gasket. They failed everyone of my freinds cars on the first try, but somehow the cars that the locals drive around with rust holes in them passed with no problem.

 

I was over in Japan for a three week study abroad program a the beginning of the summer. As far as American cars go over there, I got the impression that cars like Corvettes and Cadillacs were more of a counter-culture status symbol. I saw quite a few C5s and late model Caddys being driven by younger, (late 20s~mid 30s) hip-looking people. I think if marketed right, the new Cadillacs and the C6 (especially the Z06) could do well there. The Japanese love borrowing certain trends or styles from the West. They love to embrace things that are different and unique, which American cars (espcially the Art&Science Caddys) most certainly are compared to their domestic market. Japan is home to some of the world's wealthiest consumers, and they love automobiles.

On a side note, what I found to be really odd was that there was only two styles that people wore there: buisness-GQ suit atire, or thrift store-punk rock. I'm serious! It was either one style or the other, no real inbetween.

Which city are you in? I spent two weeks in Tokyo, near Shibuya and Harajuku (I studied at Aoyama Gakuin University). The last leg of our trip we went to Nagoya for the World Expo, then to Hiroshima (my favorite city of the trip!), and then two days in Kyoto and Nara. I'm starting to miss the food some. They have the best rice on the planet. I ate alot of rice bowls at Yoshinoya. Yummy.

Anata wa nihongo no hanashimasu ka Watashi wa tsukoshi hanashimasu. Hiroshima wa ichiban desu.

 

You guys seem to know a lot more about this than I do. Im actually suprised to see that there are in fact caddy dealers over here. Ive　seen some caddy's over here (i think all sevilles) that i figured were all imported by individuals. My dad said something about the high taxes on older cars as well which would probably explain why I have only seen 2 cars more than 20 years old.

CLEAN: I like it, im going into week number 3 now and am starting to get the hang of it. Im gettin used to the train, bus, and traffic systems (finally). Its all good times tho.

slt: There isnt too much about the hurrican over here. Ive watched some news and there was just a few minutes on the hurricane, but that was before the lunatics started shooting at emergency vehiclesso who knows now.

Sixer-bird: watashiwa kyotoni suimasu. kansai gaidaiwa watashino daigakuto hirakatani arimasu.

 

Could somebody please educate me by answering a simple question...

Why do most western nations have low tariffs on imports?

In Australia, the tariff will be lowered to just 5% next year, down from the current 10%... (30 years ago it was something like 60%) but we do have a hefty luxury tax for vehicles over $50K. The US is similar, I gather.

We continue to open up our market to predominantly Asian countries but those countries continue to impose restrictions and/or raise tariffs on their imports. It doesn't seem like a fair deal to me.

Europe seems to offer greater protection to its local markets from the Asian imports... therefore the French, Italian, German cars continue to sell well in comparison to Toyota, Honda...

 

kansai gaidai honto desu ka TCU has a program set up with Kansai Gaidai as well I believe. I think we'll be sending two students over there next year.

 

Why do Japan and China get away with absurd tarriffs?

1. They finance our budget deficit by buying US bonds.
2. They are allowing US businesses to open up shop (China).
3. They are making almost token US food purchases, keeping farms from going under here in the US (Japan).
4. They support US policy (both).

Europe doesn't run up $400,000,000,000 deficits that essentially require borrowing from China and Japan, while the US and Europe have an essentially fair trade agreements. Europe also subsidises their farmers, so they don't have to compromise with other countries that have unfair tarriffs.

Both parties of our government do this, so please no one turn this into a political debate, OK?