There will probably be more of an exodus than you think, IF these people will get off their duffs and actually go LOOK at Genesis products. To put it bluntly, these vehicles will often sell themselves. But, no, of course, there will not be an exodus if people just sit back and take an attitude like this.................

 

And MB, Audi and BMW sell boatloads in their home markets too.

At some the Genesis brand either works or it doesn’t. 6 years and waiting.


I assume Genesis franchises are available.

I will be the first in line to congratulate you when you buy your new Hyundai Genesis.

 

I agree the dealer-issues need to be resolved...but that's not the vehicle's fault. And, of course, one must remember that they are buying or leasing a vehicle, not a building or a dealership per se, although a good service department is very important.

 

And it's not like Genesis has a huge product lineup. Three sedans, and now a lone SUV. If Mercedes were to introduce a GLS 63S and a salesperson was unaware, I'd probably be pretty forgiving. It's one of like 3,600 models in the lineup.

 

How do we know that all of these lazy Audi, BMW and MB buyers didnt consider a Genesis? Maybe a lot of them did and for whatever reason decided on something else.

 

There amount of misinformation being peddled here about Genesis dealerships is laughable.

They aren't trying to get more franchises set up, they're trying to cull them down so that they can make an elite few standalone dealerships like they originally planned. Back when the brand launched in 2016 or so they wanted to set up standalone dealerships but got their butts sued off by independent Hyundai dealerships due to state franchising laws that didn't exist 30 years ago with Lexus and Acura. As a result, they had to offer the Genesis license to all their dealerships even if none of them put in the effort to treat it as a standalone brand or even made space for the cars on their lots. Now Hyundai corporate is trying to cull down the number of existing "Genesis" franchises and incentivize the few they see fit to set up standalone dealerships and facilities as they originally planned.

From what I'm hearing so far, I'm sure the GV80 will sell extremely well so long as they don't run into the long-term supply issues like the Telluride and Palisade.

 

Because most of them don't even know the brand exists. Or at least they didn't two years ago.https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/18/kore...to-buyers.html


It's common to see hate for a brand when fans of another brand feel threatened by it. Look at Cadillac, Infiniti, Acura, and heck even Lexus's current lineup and it's easy to see where the envy comes from. How many of them even have a RWD midsize SUV to compete with the Germans? A similar sentiment exists with all the anti-Tesla jargon hoping the company will fail. Fantasizing about a company failing is the only alternative to accepting that one's brand of choice won't be building the products that they want. Which is why you see so many still desperately cling onto the fiction of Toyota releasing their secret magical Solid State Battery Tesla killers next year.

 

I'm not necessarily saying that's always the case. But, because of the relative lack of Genesis outlets compared to the German-brand dealerships, it is far more likely that those considering a German brand have not looked at a Genesis than would be the alternative. I still see it (and occasionally, have to deal with it).........even today, some people's minds are still 20 years in the past, and still think that any Korean brand is junk. One of our condo-board members, for example, asked me for some vehicle-advice, and when I recommended the Kia Sportage (among several others) as possibly a good vehicle for her needs, she looked at me like I was on drugs, and said she would NEVER look at a Kia, and changed the subject.

 

I don't think that's much of a factor anymore, especially when you see how Tellurides and Palisades are flying off dealerships. The buying public isn't that ignorant.

 

Agreed, but many of the people buying Tellurides and Palisades weren't around when the Koreans were making junk. I'll agree that the anti-Korean bias isn't as bad now as it once was, but there are still too many that think this is still the 1990s.

 

I'm pretty sure most if not the majority of people who buy Tellurides and Palisades are older than 30. Most millenials aren't in the financial position to buying $40-$50K 3-row family SUV's.

I think the backlash against Korean cars in the 80s and 90s was more than just the quality of the cars, because many of them were just rebadged Fords and Mitsubishis. There was a political side to it too- the Korean war was still fresh in a lot of people's minds, particularly those in their 40s with buying power. A lot of these people who lived through the Korean war are either no longer around or no longer capable of driving. There was a similar negative attitude against Japanese cars due to WWII when they first rolled out as well in the States.

 

Not sure the Korean War had anything to do with it. We fought North Korea.....the Korean auto industry is in the South.

Now, the old "Made in Japan" stigma from the 1950s....yes, there was definitely some leftover war-bias to that. Also some truth to it, because, until the late '60s, Japanese vehicles were junk.

True to some extent, but it's also true that Kia actually built a number of small cars for Ford and Mazda. Mitsubishi was more closely tied with Hyundai, particularly in the Excel/Precis.


Back to Genesis, though, and that we were discussing earlier, part of the problem is the way that Genesis dealers operate. My experience (like that of some others who have posted in this thread) is that there are too many Hyundai reps in them that don't have any idea what is going on with Genesis. I fully agree with the comments that they need separate dealerships, although Lincoln seems to be doing pretty well selling out of Ford shops.

 

True, but it wasn't the war itself, but the perception that the war gave the American public about South Korea. At the time South Korea was seen as a third-world country. It was unthinkable to Americans back then that a poor, technologically backward country run by a dictatorship like South Korea could manufacture anything competently. When Hyundai started selling cars in America in the late 80s, the South Korean government had literally just transitioned from a dictatorship to a democracy, but many Americans still considered it an inept third world country that couldn't make anything of value.

I think the growing positive image of Hyundai/Kia in the last couple of decades is directly tied to the growth of South Korea, especially as they've become a global player in technology and commercial media that in many ways is ahead of the likes of even Japan. The rise of the Korea mirrors that of Japan's bubble period in the 70s and 80s where the quality of their products went up dramatically and became globally recognized. The technological prowess of the LS400 is the direct result of Japan's bubble economy.

 

as you know, genesis is currently sold at hyundai dealerships and apparently the dealerships have 1 or 2 dedicated genesis salespeople. the rest sell hyundai primarily and don't know much about genesis, so that's how it happens that someone walks in, talks to a hyundai salesperson who doesn't know what a gv80 is. Not to mention some genesis dealers probably haven't even had one yet. And ones like my local one have now had at least 2 but they sold a few hours after arriving so a lot of the salespeople wouldn't have seen them.

 

The GV70 is not far behind.....it has already been unveiled.