It's time to forget about those high cost of meeting new fuel economy standards and massive investments needed for autonomous vehicles, the biggest problem in the profitability of the automakers might be the buyers and their impatience.
Less than 5% of new vehicles in U.S. in 2015 were built to customer order, which is so much lower than in Europe were about 50% of the vehicles were produced on customer orders. Did you know that for U.S. dealers it means thousands of dollars in extra floorplan expenses while for automakers it's a huge advertising and incentive costs for each unsold vehicle sitting in inventory, waiting for a buyer? Almost 12% of the sticker price of the vehicle in the U.S. covers the cost of stocking and selling the vehicle. This costs include discounts that will attract us when we plan on buying something else.
Considering all of that why can't the consumers order and get exactly what they want? GM had a special offer in order to change the way Americans buy vehicles, into more like a European-style: build-to-order system. This offer gave the chance to everyone to order a vehicle online and get it at his home in just 10 days, but the plan didn't work as expected.Cadillac made some performances that attracted buyers this year and more than 2,000 models of the 2016 CTS-V got sold on customer orders but still it is not enough to say something has changed. It's important to say that almost 25% of Mini's sales were based on customer-ordered vehicles as well, and the average wait time for it's deliveries is four to eight weeks.
Is it time to move to a new European style of buying cars or we must keep the American one is still a great question. On the one hand it could save money, but on the other hand, when you've got 500-600 cars to choose from, why would you want something else?
