Detroit’s Missed Opportunity (National Review, 04.14.10)

Posted by hpayne on April 14, 2010

Detroit — Already sore from a record 8.5 million recall campaign to fix accelerator pedal issues, Toyota got more bad news Monday after Consumer Reports called the 2010 Lexus GX 460 “unsafe” — the first time the influential organization has issued such a warning since 2001. Toyota instantly told dealers to stop selling the vehicle.

Detroit automakers might have celebrated another blow to its Asian competitor’s once unblemished quality reputation, but they are still smarting from the Forbes report last week that the seven “worst-made cars on the road” are all domestics (four of them produced by Government Motors).

Rack it up as a missed opportunity for American automakers — an opportunity that Korea’s Hyundai has not missed.

Hyundai (and its sister nameplate, Kia) is the only manufacturer that actually gained sales in the Great Recession. Today its Made-in-America labor costs undercut the Japanese, its sticker prices are segment leaders, and publications like Edmunds.com and Car & Driver rank the new Sonata best in class in the formidable mid-size category that includes such vaunted makes as the Honda Accord, Ford Fusion, Toyota Camry, and Subaru Legacy.

“The 2011 Hyundai Sonata is the new benchmark among mainstream large sedans,” writes Edmunds. Who would have thought just a decade ago? Where Detroit coulda-woulda-shoulda taken advantage of Toyota’s hiccup — if it had moved earlier on quality and labor-costs problems — Hyundai has actually done it.

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