Green Car of the Year Award Date Set

One of the most important “car of the year” awards of late is the one first introduced by the Green Car Journal in 2005. The Green Car of the Year award is the brainchild of that automotive environmental magazine, capitalizing on consumer interest in vehicles that are highly fuel efficient as well as environmentally friendly.

The date for the 2010 Green Car of the Year award has been set — December 3, 2009 — and the venue remains the same: the Los Angeles Auto Show. On that date, which is the day before the show opens to the general public, members of the press will be on hand to hear the recent winner named. Last year, I was in attendance at the show which is held at the Los Angeles Convention Center in downtown L.A., and I was present for the Green Car Journal announcement.

Choosing Los Angeles

“The LA Auto Show is an ideal venue for making this important announcement,” said Ron Cogan, editor and publisher of the Green Car Journal and editor of GreenCar.com. “California has historically led the nation in automotive trends and environmental innovation, with the greater Los Angeles region often at the heart of this activity. It seems natural that the most environmentally important vehicle of the year should be honored here.”

Last year’s winner was the Volkswagen Jetta TDI, a choice that wouldn’t have been possible just a few years earlier when “clean diesel” technology didn’t exist. Thanks to low emissions and EPA highway mileage of 41 mpg, the Jetta was the winner.

Initial Winners Were Hybrids

The 2006 winner — the first one named — was the Mercury Mariner Hybrid. That model was followed up by the Toyota Camry Hybrid and then the Chevrolet Tahoe Hybrid, clearly demonstrating the thinking of the jurors who voted in some of the most environmentally friendly vehicles in their respective segments.

Although the entrants for the 2010 award haven’t been named, my thinking is that the Ford Fusion Hybrid, Toyota Prius and Honda Insight will be among the finalists.

The Ford Fusion Hybrid was released this past spring, a compact crossover that gets 41 mpg city and 36 mpg highway. The Toyota Prius has been around for a decade, but the 2010 model is all new. It is also the most fuel efficient of all hybrid models sold today.

The Honda Insight is back, the first hybrid model ever sold in the US. The latest iteration of the Insight is larger than the original, returning mileage numbers in the low 40s range. It also carries the distinction of being the lowest priced hybrid sold in America.

Five finalists will be named over the coming months with jurors selected from notable environmental groups including the Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council along with celebrities such as Carroll Shelby and Jay Leno.

Source: Los Angeles Auto Show

See Also — Electric Hummer Combines The Best Of Two Worlds

Nissan Poised To Eliminate Jobs, Transfer Production

Ever since Carlos Ghosn took over the reigns of the Nissan Motor Company during the late 1990s, the business world has seen the automaker transformed from an ailing car company to one offering leadership in a highly competitive industry. Along with managing Nissan, Ghosn also is the CEO of France’s Renault Motors, a dual position highly unusual move for companies of this size.

Ghosn Was Bullish As Recently As November

As recently as November, Ghosn was bullish on the prospects of his company as I heard his speech at the 2008 Los Angeles Auto Show where he outlined Nissan’s bold move forward with a number of initiatives, not least being his promise to have Nissan bring forth an electric car within the next year or so. Those plans are still in place, but the company is also looking to slash its 240,000 workforce by some 20,000 employees.

According to published reports including an article which appeared in yesterday’s The Wall Street Journal (Nissan to Slash Payroll, Pare Japanese Output — page B1) and elsewhere, Ghosn has suspended the company’s 5% annual revenue growth until 2012 while also moving some production from Japan to other countries. The automaker’s popular Nissan March, currently produced in Japan, will now be built at a factory in Thailand where labor and production costs are much lower.

Japan Is Too Expensive For Nissan

Nissan, like other Japanese manufacturers, has found that building cars in Japan has gotten to be too expensive. Not just higher labor and production costs are making car building more expensive in the homeland, but the soaring value of the yen against other currencies is hurting profits. Like all other large automakers, Nissan is truly a business on a global scale, with Japan being just one market where its cars are built.

Nissan is also scaling back new product introduction over the next four years from an average of twelve new products annually to ten. The company insists that it is moving forward with its plans to build an electric vehicle and will tap a $25 billion U.S. Department of Energy loan program established to help automakers develop more fuel efficient vehicles. Nissan will likely also ask the Japanese government and other national governments for financial assistance in the form of low-interest loans.

Nissan also has been pursuing strategic alliances with other automakers including Chrysler LLC for whom Nissan will provide at least one small car and probably a midsize model for America’s third largest automaker. In addition, Chrysler LLC will supply the platform for the next generation Nissan Titan, its big truck. The Titan will likely share the same platform now powering the Dodge Ram.

Auto Shows: Are They Worth It?

Introduced as a concept at the 2008 North American International Auto Show, the Cadillac CTS Coupe will soon go into production. However, how would GM have introduced the vehicle to the world without using the auto show venue to roll out the car?

From November through April, auto shows are held in cities across the US, sometimes outside of that particular time frame. New car shows allow dealers to showcase their latest cars and, if the venue is popular enough, include a number of concept cars and special presentations from the automaker itself.

This past fall was a very trying time for the world’s automakers, so much so that several automotive manufacturers curtailed or canceled their plans to appear at some of the key shows including Los Angeles and Detroit. Indeed, at this year’s North American International Auto Show in Detroit, seven manufactures pulled out, including Nissan/Infiniti, in a bid to conserve resources.

But, is not having a presence at an auto show a mistake?

According to the results of a consumer survey conducted by Foresight Research (a full-service market research company primarily serving the automotive, financial services and health-care industries), auto shows are still of great value to automakers, delivering better return on investment than many other forms of marketing.

Gleaned from the survey, one out of four new vehicle buyers said they attended at least one auto show in a 12 month period prior to purchasing their vehicle. Among all buyers 10% said that the auto show had a significant influence on their purchase.

The survey also revealed that most often auto shows impact buyers early on in the shopping process as 51% of the respondents indicated that the auto show influenced their interest in a brand or type of vehicle; while 39% said it influenced their decision to shop at dealerships for that vehicle. Lastly, 19% said the auto show influenced their final purchase decision.

The Foresight Research Marketing survey was conducted this past fall among nearly four thousand recent vehicle buyers – people who purchased or leased a vehicle that was acquired during the 2008 model year. These consumers were questioned about what influenced them to shop for and ultimately purchase or lease the vehicle they chose.

So if you are an automobile manufacturer and you are considering skipping an upcoming show, you may want to rethink your strategy. Certainly, money is tight, but auto shows clearly offer a compelling reason why they should be part of an automaker’s overall marketing strategy including your own.

Source: Foresight Research