DaimlerChrysler AG says its redesigned minivans, which feature electronic sliding doors and a power back-end liftgate, will propel the auto maker past competitors and secure its stranglehold on the world's minivan market.
"It's not just a leap over the pond, but a giant leap over the competition," DaimlerChrysler president James Holden said yesterday as the auto makers' 2001 model minivans were unveiled at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.
The company's entry level Chrysler Voyager, Dodge Caravan and the upscale Chrysler Town & Country will start rolling off production lines in Windsor, Ont., in June, and will arrive in showrooms by midsummer. But the prices have not yet been set.
Mr. Holden told reporters that, because of downtime during product changeover, sales in the launch year could fall slightly below the 607,000 minivans the company sold around the globe last year.
But DaimlerChrysler executives are confident the company's minivan innovations, which also include temperature controls for three separate zones of the vehicle, a powerful 3.5-litre 230-horsepower engine and a power sliding door obstacle detection system, will accelerate sales in future years.
The power liftgate at the rear, for example, means an end to setting packages or luggage on the ground while the liftgate is manually opened. "Nobody has the power liftgate anywhere in the world. And, frankly, it's a feature that took some serious invention to package because it takes a fair amount of electronics . . . But I think it's going to be a runaway hit," Mr. Holden told reporters.
If he's right, it's good news for auto parts giant Magna International Inc., the Aurora, Ont.-based company supplying DaimlerChrysler with the electronic mechanism for the power liftgate as well as the sliding doors.
Gordon Rinschler, DaimlerChrysler's vice-president of minivan platform engineering, estimated that between 30 to 40 per cent of the long-wheelbase 2001 models will be sold with the power liftgate option.
"This is going to be a dynamite hit because we're offering the power liftgate and the power doors separately . . . We're trying to keep this affordable and in some of the lower-price-tagged vehicles," Mr. Rinschler said.
A hit is exactly what DaimlerChrysler needs, some observers said. Since creating the minivan in 1983, the auto maker has been under increasing pressure from both domestic and foreign competitors.
Last year, DaimlerChrysler enjoyed the largest share of the world's minivan market, about 40 per cent of the 1.5 million vehicles sold. But analysts said that in North America, the market share of DaimlerChrysler's most important product has shrunk as competitive minivans, such as the U.S.-built Toyota Sienna and the Canadian-built Honda Odyssey have made inroads in the market.
In the past two years, Ford Motor Co., and four Japanese makers -- Honda Motor Co. Ltd., Toyota Motor Corp., Nissan Motor Co. Ltd., Mazda Motor Corp. -- have unveiled remodelled minivans. All have been applauded by consumers.
"It's tough, and there's more and more competitors," DaimlerChrysler's Mr. Holden said. But he's banking on the "extreme loyalty" of Chrysler and Dodge minivan customers, as well as the product innovations revealed yesterday, to enable his company to maintain its pre-eminence in the market.
"We have hit 45 per cent of the segment," Mr. Holden said. "I could buy 45 per cent of the segment today, but I'm in changeover. I'm running at capacity anyway, which is just under 40 per cent. But we'll get back over 40."
Auto analysts are not quite as optimistic. "The objective of the redesign is to protect the company's biggest cash cow," said John Casesa, an analyst with Merrill Lynch & Co. in New York. "It's not to gain share. It's not to capture any new customers. It's to protect this massive cash cow."
Mr. Casesa described the redesigned minivan as a defensive product that will help DaimlerChrysler recapture short-term market-share losses, but those won't translate into long-term gains.