Quote:
Originally Posted by didymus
The question is how many cars they need to sell to make a profit
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As Montez said the target was 25-30k units. Then every 4 weeks as the gas crisis had gotten worse they began scaling numbers back from 30 to 20 then 15k units. At 15k I got a strong impression that they are pretty much breaking even at this price point..
Year one they sold around 500 units more than they hoped.
Year two they sold 4500 less than they wanted which was a settlement target to begin with.
And year 3 isn't over but sales have further reduced.
Nissan had hoped by this time the economy would have stabilized and the Z would hopefully be selling at minimum. 20k units. Instead we temporarily stabilized for 2 summers... now we are in the same boat and it may get worse. Gas may rise to new record levels. Food prices are going up again. Pretty soon energy prices will probably skyrocket all over again.
That said, I really don't see more than 8-10k units being sold this year. Nissan is the only company who hasn't even made the smallest peep about a refresh. All I ever hear about is the Leaf, Juke and the NissaMitsu merger that will bring more hybrids and eco cars.
We haven't even seen a teaser drawing that's up to date and OFFICIAL of a refreshed body or something???. The hybrid Z is as mysterious as a black hole and no mention has been made of it in over a year. If nissans silence is just to surprise us then I gotta give them there props for extreme confidence because in a market like this, teasers and marketing moves cars.
Nissan is the only company right now that has no buzz on its affordable sports car. I know nissan never devulges its final product till the very end but, they normally like to create buzz. Nissan corp has done nothing to incite excitement in the Z product. All I heard is the 370 might appear in the movie "FAST 5". That may or may not help? Who knows???
I think we are all very fortunate to own our 370's to be honest. The future of our fairlady looks bleek.