Why Station Wagons Are More Popular In Europe Than America

Video Statistics and Information

Video
Captions Word Cloud
Reddit Comments

Because we have the 1984 Dodge Caravan.

๐Ÿ‘๏ธŽ︎ 32 ๐Ÿ‘ค๏ธŽ︎ u/Drzhivago138 ๐Ÿ“…๏ธŽ︎ Oct 17 2019 ๐Ÿ—ซ︎ replies

Uhh, we don't have tiny roads and gas is cheap here?

๐Ÿ‘๏ธŽ︎ 47 ๐Ÿ‘ค๏ธŽ︎ u/mckirkus ๐Ÿ“…๏ธŽ︎ Oct 17 2019 ๐Ÿ—ซ︎ replies

Some americans buy wagons :(

๐Ÿ‘๏ธŽ︎ 9 ๐Ÿ‘ค๏ธŽ︎ u/silentxor ๐Ÿ“…๏ธŽ︎ Oct 18 2019 ๐Ÿ—ซ︎ replies

Takeaway #1: it's not that wagons are popular in Europe. It's that they are popular in Germany (where it makes sense due to Autobahn speeds) and in Scandinavia (I suspect where people want lower centre of gravity for winter driving), but hardly much else. Eastern Block is curious, but it's hard to gauge. Curiously, this undercuts the argument about high fuel prices, because in really high fuel price markets like Italy wagons are not that popular.

Takeaway #2: wast majority of US "wagon" sales is Subaru Outback. Excuse me? Is this even the solution to low MPG's lamented on crossovers? It has lower MPG's than GMC Terrain, for example.

Takeaway #3: they bring up trunk space, particularly in V60. However, the sedan version, S60, had a really small trunk in comparison: it was 11.6 cubic ft vs. 16.3 cubic ft in Malibu (even modern Cruze has 14.3 cubic ft!). Yes, you could say that Euro wagons add space, but only because the space they started with was very small!

Which brings us to the final point: third row. Yes, it's needed. No, getting a child seat that would work with rear-facing seat is not trivial. No, you still need trunk space. And, finally, even with our family with two small kids we'd love to be able to place both kids and mom in the back with more space, because, well, kids at young age still need adult supervision.

๐Ÿ‘๏ธŽ︎ 21 ๐Ÿ‘ค๏ธŽ︎ u/SamsonFox ๐Ÿ“…๏ธŽ︎ Oct 17 2019 ๐Ÿ—ซ︎ replies

Isn't it mainly because Europe took longer to discover the SUV/Crossover?

https://europe.autonews.com/sales-segment/suv-gains-fail-offset-overall-h1-decline-european-market

๐Ÿ‘๏ธŽ︎ 3 ๐Ÿ‘ค๏ธŽ︎ u/accord1999 ๐Ÿ“…๏ธŽ︎ Oct 17 2019 ๐Ÿ—ซ︎ replies
Captions
Wagons away Hi, I'm Jack Smith and right now, it's station wagon savings time in the west. Time to hit the trail in high style with all a will comfort, but only a Rambler station wagon can give you. The station wagon was once a fixture of American family life. It was a common sight in American garages and frequently featured in popular culture. These days, however, it has nearly vanished from US roads. Americans, at least most of them, just don't like the segment. And it shows in the tiny number of wagons sold every year, Americans just don't like wagons for whatever reason. We we have rejected the body style for many years. It's been declining. You know, we think back to perhaps some of those movies like National Lampoon's Vacation, where a family travels across the country in a wagon. Those days are long, long behind us. And these days, wagon sales are less than 2 percent of all industry sales. Meanwhile, crossovers and sport utility vehicles continue to swallow market share, leading many manufacturers to believe that if they want to sell a wagon, they need to lift it a bit, maybe cover it with some cladding and call it a crossover. You want the crossover tag associated with it because that's what people are buying and that's what they want to buy. At some point, they may want another tag because it's no longer cool to own a crossover, an SUV. But right now, that's not the case yet. In 2018, consumers around the world bought just under 2.5 million wagons, roughly a mere 3 percent of all new cars sold in the United States the segment represents only about 1 to 2 percent of all sales. But in some European countries, sales are several times that. Wagon's represented nearly 20 percent of all sales in Germany and at least a quarter of sales in some Scandinavian countries, such as Finland and Sweden. wagons also comprised 23 percent of all sales in Czech Republic, 16 percent in Slovakia and 15 percent in Poland. In Sweden our home country, close to 50 percent of our volume is related to wagons. You have the best residual values, you have the most loyal consumers. And also that is how we were live in Sweden. You know, nature is very important. We do exactly in line with Americans. You know, it's a lot of football and a lot of sports associated with our kids. So we need a space. And so the legacy of wagons is really in our DNA. Also you see them all over the place and the roads in Sweden and in Europe. More than 70 percent of all wagon's sold in the world are sold in Europe. There the wagon is still seen as an efficient blend of function and performance, especially when fuel prices can be quite high. In Europe, the station wagon continues to be the prototype for many families, even though it they have lost traction as well in Europe. Despite the fact that Europe is the world's wagon stronghold, data do suggest that sport utilities are eating into its share on that continent as well. Of course, on the other end of the spectrum, US data show that sport utility vehicles have completely eclipsed the wagon as the family hauler of choice. Wagons have steadily lost share in the US new car market from 3.69 percent of new car sales in 2008 to 1.4 percent in 2018. Cross-overs and SUVs grew their share of the new car market in the US by 20 percent from 2008 to 2018. They now make up nearly half of all new car sales. For now, wagons have managed to find a way to keep a foothold, albeit a small one in America. For example, the segment straddling Subaru Outback has been a tremendously successful product for that company part wagon, part crossover. The Outback was introduced in the 1995 model year as a variant of the Subaru legacy, but was soon spun out into its own distinct brand and has become something of a phenomenon. The outback alone accounted for the vast majority of wagon sales in the US. Of that, 1.4 percent of the US market wagons have the outback alone makes up 1.2 percent. In other words, almost all of it. That means all wagons sold by all other brands combined would account for just 0.2 percent of the total US new car market. So when we talk about wagons, we're essentially talking about one model with with a very decent industry share and then a handful of other models that, quite frankly, don't sell very well. The outback is an example of how wagon like vehicles can be successfully marketed in the United States and perhaps gives an idea of how they are likely to look in the future if they stick around. Though it retains many of the basic features of a wagon, the car is lifted a bit and covered in plastic cladding to give it more of a rugged outdoor appearance. It retains the basic silhouette of the wagon, but the outback has evolved over time to incorporate more attributes of SUVs and crossovers Subaru told CNBC. This includes standard all wheel drive, the ability to tow up to thirty five hundred pounds and a full eight point seven inches of ground clearance higher than what is found on many SUVs. The company said they were one of the early players obviously in this crossover space before the term crossover was even mentioned. And that's again when they were being called wagons. So I think they've done well if they've got a very loyal buyer. They've expanded into the certainly the outdoor lifestyle buyer has has has long been a Subaru advocate. So I think, you know, is that as that continues to to develop and people are more interested in an active, active lives and in certainly what what super has to offer from just an honor and capability. But but also on dirt and on on trails even. The outback shows that selling a wagon in the US may be a lot easier if it happens to look like a sport utility vehicle. In fact, it might be one of the only wagon like vehicles to survive in the United States. But yeah, no question about it, the wagon market is certainly taking cues from the from the SUV and crossover segments and adding, as you said, a little bit of cladding, raising that ground clearance up a little bit to give it that that view that essentially it can compete with a crossover. That rather dire outlook has not stopped other automakers from rolling the dice, though. General Motors sells the Buick Regal Tours X, a US version of the Opel insignia wagon. GM used to sell in Europe when it owned the Opel brand. Notably, the US version has the same plastic cladding and slight lift, which is not seen on the European version. But with a lower center of gravity, it gives more sedan like driving dynamics and a lower roof for easy rooftop access key features wagon buyers want in a car. There are several positive signs for wagon fans elsewhere in the US if they have the cash. Much of the variety in the US wagon market is found at the higher end, where luxury and high performance can gloss over the otherwise dowdy and domestic image the wagon has. Given the fact that the countries with some of the highest wagon sales are Germany and the Scandinavian nations. It makes sense that most of these premium wagons are from German and Scandinavian automakers. The Swedish brand Volvo is perhaps the brand best known for wagons, and its among the brands most committed to the segment in the United States. Though Volvo has lately focused intensely on building out its lineup of sport utility vehicles, a substantial portion of its portfolio is still in wagons. I see the same opportunities in us. So one part of me is a bit confused that this should be much bigger. The volume should be much, much, much bigger. But then we have the SUV trend in the US that probably overlaps that kind of because could get the space to an SUV. But I would say the wagons are for me they're beautiful. And I think you'll see the cars here, the size wise that are boxy anymore, and they are not boring. You get both. You get the driving capabilities as a sedan and you get more space. And also it looks sporty and that's what we aim for. Volvo sells the mid-sized V60 wagon and the larger V90. Both can be bought in the cross country trim, which means the car is lifted and comes with the familiar dark cladding on the sides of the car. And Volvo also has a 415 horsepower performance hybrid version of its V 60 bearing Volvos Polestar brand, which was once its in-house performance shop and now specializes in making high performance electric vehicles. Mercedes Benz sells its E-Class wagons in the US, mostly to well-heeled buyers with families. The car sells especially well in the Northeast. Wagon sales make up a tiny portion of Mercedes US total zero point seven percent to be exact. But buyers are loyal and they pay an E 450 for Madoc wagon starts at about sixty $66000 and the higher performance AMG e63 S starts above one hundred eight thousand dollars. Fellow German automaker Audi said in August of 2019, it plans to bring the R.S. Six a vaunt wagon to the US. The R.S. Six Avante is a performance wagon. Audi will sell alongside the eight for all road wagon it currently offers and the a six all road, which Audi said in October. It will also be bringing back to the US. In recent years in the United States, Audi has only sold its a for all road wagon, which is also a popular choice among premium wagon buyers. Even Porsche has a wagon like vehicle. However, the number of wagon loving diehards seems to be shrinking and many in the industry are not optimistic that the wagon will make a comeback anytime soon. I just I wonder how many more cracks at the bat we're gonna get here from from this forbidden fruit. And these wagons coming from overseas. So things are getting, you know, even even slimmer for for a wagon enthusiast out there. And so guide the future for wagons. It's going to be tough for for future European wagons, too, to really come to United States. What buyers are more likely to end up with is a crossover, which some say is really a wagon in a slightly different form. There isn't a lot of what I would call pure wagon development going on right now. So, you know, with that as a backdrop, the I guess prospects for the wagon aren't necessarily strong. But the caveat here is you're getting into then that, you know, blurring area where what is a wagon and what's a crossover? And a lot of the stuff that is being developed is, you know, what I would argue is a shorter height twice vehicles that that have kind of crossover style, but are probably more like a wagon. Sport utility vehicles do seem to have certain practical advantages over traditional passenger cars that consumers seem to find irresistible. Most importantly, their taller height gives drivers a better view of the road and often more comfortable upright seating position. Customers also consider them easier to get in and out of fuel. Economy has also improved on SUVs to the point where they are often about as efficient as comparably sized passenger cars. But their image as more rugged, sporty and versatile vehicles has played a significant role in their appeal, say many industry watchers. They have become so popular as family vehicles that they may one day end up with the same reputation wagons themselves earned over the decades. Practical but deeply uncool.
Info
Channel: CNBC
Views: 947,272
Rating: 4.7262692 out of 5
Keywords: CNBC, business, news, finance stock, stock market, news channel, news station, breaking news, us news, world news, cable, cable news, finance news, money, money tips, financial news, Stock market news, stocks, doug demuro, station wagon, regular car reviews, carfection, is the suv killing the station wagon, suv vs station wagon
Id: euPi2qIOHYo
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 13min 27sec (807 seconds)
Published: Thu Oct 17 2019
Related Videos
Note
Please note that this website is currently a work in progress! Lots of interesting data and statistics to come.