Astolfo

So lets buy now~ According various news agencies including FOX, Trumps wants a 35% tax on German cars.

homeofstone

No, its just if a plant making a car here in the U.S. is closed and the production is then done in lets say Mexico. BMW is thinking of doing that.

Astolfo

I do not know but for what I read, it is blank statement.


How about fixing and bringing American cars up to quality first? Using the least common denominator for engineering excellence and quality is not leadership.


I guess time will tell

sunil517

Toyota is more American than a Ford/Chevy...

vdubpower

we should tax his european wives

Abunde

Not Going To Happen!

PSDCampervan

Fox Business News just reported that U.S. cars imported into Germany pay a 10% tariff while German cars imported into U.S. presently only pay a 2.5% tariff so while 35% quote might come across strong, I think Trump knows true # he'll realistically settle for will be more in line with what Germany does to U.S. imports currently & maybe even go higher to reverse flow awhile & give U.S. opportunity to catch up with foreign competitor policies.

Abunde

According to Forbes;

"In an interview with Germany’s BILD Zeitung, published late Sunday night, Trump said BMW would “waste its time and money” building a plant in Mexico, because Trump would slap the Bavarian automaker with his infamous “35% border tax.” After Ford, GM, and Toyota, BMW is the fourth automaker in Trump’s cross-hairs.
In the interview – it is translated into German, and behind BILD’s paywall – Trump complains that the Germans were “very unfair to the U.S.” After all, said Trump, “how many Chevrolets do you see in Germany?” With that, Trump once again demonstrated that he learned less about the car business than a 14 year-old reader of the Jalopnik carblog. The 14 yo knows that GM pulled Chevrolet from the European market in 2015, after an attempt to turn Chevrolet into a global car brand turned into, to steal Trump’s lines, a “total disaster.” To make matters worse for the Europeans, and now Trump, the Chevrolets weren't American, but made-in-Korea.

What Trump also failed to grasp is the fact that GM has a strong presence in Germany and Europe. It is called Opel, and Vauxhall in the UK. Opel, and also Ford, are big in Germany. Last year, each sold a similar amount of cars in Germany as BMW. Ford Europe and Opel are unlikely to be looking forward to become collateral damage of a trade war between the U.S. and the EU.
In Germany, a government official already warned that German auto production in the United States, and with it many jobs, could be threatened if U.S. President-elect Donald Trump puts in place protectionist trade measures, Reuters wrote."

gaspam

my 401K is up $40K in 2 months since trump got elected so whatever lol

Astolfo

But who wants a US built car today? I would never buy a US built car until quality, quality control, performance, assembling craftsmanship and engineering come up to EU built cars (major EU brands).


On top, cars designed for the American market (i.e. Mustang, Viper, etc) almost do not fit in EU roads, they can't turn and they are bought mostly as "show" cars.


I would say if you want a share of market, the US car manufacturers have to do a LOT of work not only in quality, performance, reliability, safety and craftsmanship, but design to even start competing in the international market.


Dumping a 600HP engine in 4 wheels that can't turn is not a performance car, it is a dragstrip car that can't be used in the streets of any EU, or Asian market.

Astolfo

+1

looney100

LOL!

looney100

It doesn't matter where the cars are built or designed. It's about the companies that do so, their brand strategies, priorities, design & production processes.
Toyota and Lexus build bland, reliable cars, regardless of which country they build them in. That's because their design process and quality control is consistent across the company.

Astolfo

I beg to disagree. Look at MB and BMW build/assembled in the us and those in Estonia and Alabama, the difference is abysmal. Or for that matter those built in the US and Mexico. I would have mine with a bottle of aged Agave please.


Anyways, it would be interesting to see what happens.

BlownV8

My GL built in Alabama is the best MB I've ever owned. It has over 200k and is as tight as the day I got the car. Can't say the same for my German built E or SL. I love the E and SL but they are not holding up nearly as well.

otakki

Engineering and quality control are the key, regardless of where it is built.

Astolfo

and materials and employees. Just like with tires not all source materials and quality matters. Take a look at Continental tires for example you can the exact tire model built in one country, then buy a new one from another and the tire characteristics are completely different. that is why you would want to select the country of origin for all the tires...


There are 1000 shades of grey....if not German cars would be as warm and stylish as an Italian car and an Italian would be as precisely engineered as a German.




Are you saying that if you were given the choice between a car manufactured and assembled in Germany and a car Designed in Germany but assembled and manufactured in the US, you would pick the Made in America car? If so good for you, I would not at the present time.

looney100

I realize that my personal experience is far from a representative sample, but we currently own two German-built E Classes, and have not been impressed with the quality of either. We're on the third transmission in my wife's E250, and I'll be bringing it to the dealership Friday for the same issue again.

My E63 has also been far from flawless.

Prior cars were a Toyota and an Acura - both built in Canada. In 14 years of ownership between the two, only two trips to the dealership for warranty repairs.

Variations in vehicle reliability are much greater between manufacturers than countries of origin.

YellowJacket

Mercedes had the worst, must unreliable junk cars up until about 10 years ago. Few years ago, I had fun when my 30k mile C63 AMG had the engine lock up going down the freeway due to stuck injectors. Others had the head bolt issue.

abcut973

Although the problem exists I could count by hand the number of actual cases.
It is a fact European car's quality has been ahead of the US for a very long time. We are just catching up ...

BlownV8

Interesting, Chevy, Ford, Buick, and GMC all outrank MB in the 2016 JD Powers Quality rankings.

24Hours

Abunde... great info. Ford used to produce cars in Germany with the Ford label. My dad had a '74 Capri he swore was "just like a sports car", as it was made in W. Germany... but my dad thought that Schlitz was beer too.

I think Trump will ride his wave of populism, and begin to fade fast. We can already see a turning of the tide. Markets are lower, the press had grown a pair of *****, and all of the Cabinet nominations are horrible (most diametrically opposed to the very agency to which they were nominated to run).

I hope I'm right here, but nothing will change with import taxes. The only people who will get screwed are the people losing HC under the ACA... such a pity.

gaspam

markets are lower? lol ok, you demonstrated your lack of subject matter expertise with that statement as clearly you dont know what you are talking about, which makes all your other talking points hard to take seriously... I work in the markets and they are anything but down(unless you are talking about markets that are inversely correlated to US equities markets, but why would you be?) ... keep drinking the kool-aid from msnbc/cnn

here's how down the dja is since election



fyi that rate of return is = to about 46% annualized (((19800/18300)^(365/76))-1) and dja is historically 7% annualized

looney100

Markets have runs up and down all the time, often without explanation - and with abrupt changes. You can't attribute the gain to Trump, nor can you expect it to continue.

Using your same methodology, I could say that the S&P 500 was down 0.5% in the day and a half since Trump was sworn in. This means that the market will be at 0 by the end of the year.

Markets go up, markets go down. Rarely do we truly know why. Futures were down several percentage points on election night when it looked like Trump would win. Before trading started the next morning things were flat.

gaspam

lol you have no idea what your are talking about, but ok

look at the previous dja graph its not a miniscule couple day swing... its 76 days... markets dont run up 76 days just randomly... day over day sure, but we are not talking only a few days

their is no other significant financial news to push the dja up that much for that long without correction... its 100% trump and the markets anticipation of deregulation he has promised he would enact.... now conversely if we dont see any progress on deregulation over next quarter or 2 then you can rest assured we will start to see a sharp correction

Also, at the same time period since election 10YT bond rates have gone up 60 basis points (thats huge in 76 days)... you know why? because bond prices collapsed since economic expansion is expected so bond investors flock out of fixed income safe havens into the equities market for anticipated economic growth (bond markets are generally inversely correlated to equities)..... hmmm weird its almost like ever since trump got elected there is giant glaring correlatively trend in the financial markets (both equities and fixed income) that everyone notices but you yes, its just normal market noise... nothing to see there, happens all time lol

there is a saying in the fixed income/ bond market that goes "what's bad for america is good for bonds " so clearly the markets/ traders (that's me) think trump is good for the financial markets since the bond markets have tanked and equities rallied