The TrueDelta site has not been friendly to the visually oriented. In other words, it has lacked photos of the cars it provides information about. Well, I’m finally doing something about this. Beyond making the site prettier, photos should help those who haven’t a clue what the name of Kia’s minivan is (Sedona). Thumbnails will be attending the model selection… More →
Category: Marketing
Marketing
Chrysler and the problem with fleet sales
Automotive News (subscription required) reports this week that nearly half of Chrysler brand vehicles (48.5 percent) were bought by fleets in recent months. This is more than any other brand (Pontiac is next with 44 percent.) Critics of Detroit often mention the high percentage of fleet sales, and Detroit executives often talk about reducing their dependence on these sales. What’s… More →
Saab needs to find its future in the past
Trollhattansaab.net’s Swade has posted an open letter to Steve Shannon, Saab’s new boss. To his suggestions, excellent as always, I’d like to add my own. My feeling is that Saab has lost its way and forgotten much of what made its cars attractive when they were last hot, back in the 1980s. It hasn’t helped that GM bought Saab thinking… More →
IF and WHEN, or WHAT and HOW?
General Motors product czar Bob Lutz recently announced that “We’ve pushed the pause button” on large rear-wheel-drive cars currently under development. The stated reason? Bush’s proposed increases in Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards. Maybe this pause makes sense. My concern is that this is far from an isolated instance. These cars were put on hold at least once a couple… More →
Pick your battles and lose the war
I spent a year and a half inside GM back in the mid-1990s performing research for my Ph.D. thesis. I studied how the “voice of the customer” made its way into new product decisions. At that time, it was very hard for anyone to get anything done, because each part of the organization was charged with optimizing a different piece of… More →
Corruption in dealer satisfaction surveys
“Don’t Coach Me on how to Answer your Stupid Survey,” Mrad writes over at Volksbloggin, a VW-focused blog. The object of his ire: dealers that ask you to give them perfect marks on sales and service satisfaction surveys conducted by the manufacturer. I’ve come across this myself, and read about it often on various forums. Why is this survey process… More →
Save the concept, give us production: Take 2
Earlier today I posted a blog entry suggesting that GM made a mistake showing the Volt. And now I’ve come across an instance where GM showed a promising concept three years ago, but has let someone else be the first to actually offer such a product.
The blog and the growth of the panel
My top priority, by a wide margin, is growing the panel to a point where TrueDelta can provide solid reliability information on all popular models. This was a major reason I started this blog, because a few people suggested it would make the site more attractive to potential members.
Improving usability
Many people continue to find the site difficult to use. So based on one member’s advice (with which the site’s designer concurred) I read Steve Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think, a classic in the website usability genre. It’s a quick read, and I picked up some useful tips. I’ve spent the last couple of days improving the organization of the… More →
Size matters, but is bigger always better?
An active discussion of the 2008 Cadillac CTS at GMInsideNews.com has brought to the fore one of my favorite topics: vehicle size. Detroit’s critics for years have charged that it has never grasped that not everyone feels that a bigger car is a better car. And they’ve had many grounds for doing so. For years Detroit refused to offer compact… More →