Bring on the incentives and you can hit the goal Mr. Krafcik otherwise join the long list of former Hyundai USA CEO's. The lineup that didn't hit their sales plan were: Finbarr O'Neill, Bob Cosmai, Steve Wilhite, and Jon Eun Kim were not able to gain enough ground towards the brand's goal of selling 1 million units by 2010.
January will have to be an incentive month or they will only sell ~13,000 Sedans for 2009 - far short of their 20K goal. I would be sweating bullets if I were the sales lead... the Koreans have a habit of not tolerating commitments that are not met....
As a consumer I have explored this car ad nauseum and would buy one if it were priced more aggressively... V8 Tech only - OTD for $36K or lease for $429 a month with no cap acquisition fees on 15K per year. I would not consider the V6 due to the cheaper brakes, cheaper tranny, and advertising hype in comparision to the competition the has the V8 in fine print at the bottom... The V6 is a good car - but does not live up to the marketing hype in comparison to the list below.
Some disappointments that I have found after months of test driving this car;
No -Bi-Xenon Headlights - (hell my midtier VW Passat has Bi-Xenon headlights - for those who don't know what this means - flash your highbeams on one night and you will see what I mean)
Suspension is interesting - I can't say I dislike it -it just will take some getting used to.
Make the KOREAN GENESIS Logo the norm - not some cheesy mod that the owner needs to make.
Make the 10year 100,000 warranty cover the Tech package too - 3 year 36,000 does not compete with your competition
Add the passenger side cooled seat
Add power fold in mirrors for those of us that part in garages alot.
Add Shift paddles on the V8
Add dealers that have the ability to really negotiate.
Add a new market incentive manager that understands that the market is only getting worse and take what you can get now and get the car on the market.
Add aggressive incentives that will make the product manager's of BMW, MB, INF, LEX, AUDI, and Acura want to work for you!
This risk Hyundai is taking right now is a "pro-american" tariff happy new administration that is coming on line. Once 2 MIL former american suppliers lose thier jobs - you can bet that thier Senators are going to begin banging their Lobby arms on the hill to protect thier economic base - this could have a negative impact on Hyundai - even if they have a plant in Alabama.... the GENESIS isn't made in ALABAMA - but in Ulsan Korea....
GENESIS Sales YTD:
June: 30 Units
July: 619 Units
August: 1177 units
September: 1029 units – median monthly – will not achieve sales goal of 20,000 Sedans…..
October 1121 units
November : 1,151 units
Total YTD Sales
5,127 units (74% off target of 20,000 Sedan sales for 2009)
Also note the downward trend for BMW, MB, INF, LEX, AUDI, and Acura…. The numbers in bold are YTD and the Aug, Sept, Oct and Nov unit results… The Genesis is starting to hurt the Lexus GS sales…….. hence their $7000 incentive you can get with aggressive negotiation and their recent $599 Lease (AWD, NAV, GS350, 10K per year)
BMW 5-Series
(14,595): 5,287 | 2,423 | 3,958 | 2,927
Mercedes E-Class
(10,011): 2,681 | 2,968 | 2,098 | 2,264
Infiniti M
(4,667): 1,211 | 1,077 | 1,193 | 1,186
Hyundai Genesis
(4,478): 1,177 | 1,029 | 1,121 | 1,151
Lexus GS
(4,203): 1,686 | 977 | 819 | 721
Audi A6/S6
(4,085): 1,520 | 1,090 | 758 | 717
Acura RL
(1,081): 316 | 259 | 272 | 234