New Car Hybrid Cars Review 2009

While most Japanese automakers succeed quite well in the ultra-competitive North American market, there are a a handful of manufacturers who haven’t done that well. This shouldn’t be a surprise as Japan still has nine car companies, three times the number found in the U.S.Daihatsu marketed cars in North America briefly during the 1990s before pulling out of the marketplace. In 1999, Toyota acquired controlling interest in the automaker, but has shown little interest in reintroducing the brand. Mitsubishi and Suzuki have had a tough time of it over the past few years, possibly signaling their eventually leaving the North American market. However, only Isuzu has promised to make an exit, with plans to leave the North American market during the first quarter of 2009.

At one time Isuzu had a small, but important presence in the US market with a line of compact cars and trucks that competed well against both American and Asian brands. The Isuzu I-Mark and the Impulse were two cars with respectable sales in addition to trucks and sport/utility models including the Trooper, Rodeo and Axiom.

However, it was negative publicity for the Trooper which hurt Isuzu in the form of a “Not Acceptable” rating from Consumer Reports which cited the model’s tendency to roll over in accident avoidance tests. Isuzu later sued Consumers Union, the magazine’s owner, winning a partial judgment but losing sales. Some analysts believe that the Consumers Union contributed to the brand’s demise, hastened by its partnership with General Motors.

GM’s partial ownership of Isuzu, which ended in 2006, resulted in Isuzu scaling back its model line to include only a handful of trucks and sport/utility vehicles which were all based on current GM platforms. Essentially, the automaker quit importing its own passenger vehicles in a bid to concentrate on its key markets - commercial vehicles and diesel engines.

However, when GM announced in late 2007 that they would no longer provide badged versions of its vehicles for Isuzu, the Japanese automaker decided to exit the passenger car market for good, a move that will be finalized on January 31, 2009, ending two decades of US sales.

Current Isuzu owners will still be able to get their vehicles serviced at Isuzu service centers which will stay open for the near future. Likely, GM based vehicles will eventually be serviced at Chevrolet or GMC service centers down the line, but for now customers can still have Isuzu maintain their cars.

Will Isuzu’s exit signal additional brand’s leaving the North American market? Likely, that will happen especially if 2009 sales turn out to be as down as they were in 2008. In that case, all bets are off as several manufacturers contemplate their fate in the months ahead.