Californians Dreamin’ of Luxury, Safety
If California car buyers ran the automotive world, daytime-running headlights would blink out before long and every passenger in every vehicle--even in the rear seats--would be protected by an air bag or two.
Anti-theft systems would be standard on most vehicles, not costly options. Also standard would be multiple-disc CD changers, leather upholstery and “smart” controls for drivers’ seats so they would automatically adjust into preset positions at the touch of a button.
All those features are top items on a California buyers’ wish list developed for Highway 1 from a national automotive content survey just completed by J.D. Power & Associates, the Agoura Hills-based marketing information firm. The “feature contenting” survey asked new-car buyers what features they wanted to see on their next new vehicle, and California respondents had a higher level of interest than other buyers in 35 of the 43 items listed.
The desires of California motorists are noteworthy because the state accounts for about 10% of all new cars and trucks sold each year. Auto makers--in Detroit, Asia and Europe--take California tastes into account when deciding what features to put into their vehicles and whether to include them as standard offerings or as extra-price options.
The J.D. Power study’s results are also important for revealing what items turn off the California contingent or are missing in the market, said Power’s product research manager, Jacques daCosta.
“We know, for instance, that consumers are still moving to luxury trucks and sport-utility vehicles,” he said. Most experts expect truck and SUV sales to account for almost half the vehicles sold in the U.S. this year, with the luxury end of the segment accounting for the biggest sales gains. Yet many of the priciest trucks and sport-utes “don’t come with the same high level of safety content that buyers would get with a luxury car,” DaCosta said.
Auto makers seeking to make their truck and SUV offerings more competitive could do so by boosting the number of air bags and adding features like traction control, he said.
Marketers at Lincoln Mercury, which this summer moved its headquarters from Michigan to Irvine to be close to California’s trend-setting automotive culture, agree that the likes and dislikes of buyers here are important.
But they also know that not every item that is popular in California is going to ring bells in more utilitarian markets like Pittsburgh.
Cars and trucks, which are considered work tools by commuters in much of the rest of the country, have been elevated into status symbols in California, and marketing specialists know “that some of the amenities Californians demand are just not important to people in other parts of the country,” said Lincoln Mercury spokesman Jim Trainor.
One way auto makers deal with the issue is to develop regionalized content packages, said George Magliano, head of the automotive industry unit at WEFA Group economic consultants in New York.
“The coastal states are always a different market than the Midlands,” Magliano said. “So it’s not good to think that what California wants is the wave of the future. But the state is significant because of its size, so it has to be watched.”
California buyers are also “early adopters,” Trainor said. Strong California sales of the first Lincoln Navigators to hit the market last year were an early, and accurate, signal that the luxury sport-utility vehicle was going to be a hit throughout the country, he said.
The Power group’s findings on California buyers’ desires for their next vehicles are based on 10,720 responses from the firm’s survey of 97,907 new-car buyers for its national feature contenting report. The survey was conducted between December and April, DaCosta said.
The demand for most safety features--rear passenger and side-impact air bags, adaptive cruise control, traction-control systems and proximity sensors, to name a few--was much higher among Californians than among buyers in the rest of the country. About 74% of buyers here, for example, said they wanted side-impact air bags on their next new vehicle, versus 65% in other states.
But daytime-running lights, pioneered in Europe and introduced by General Motors Corp. in this country, aren’t as big a hit in California, where just 52% of buyers say they’d like them next time, versus 57% in the rest of the country. The other items for which California buyers’ enthusiasm lagged the pack were adjustable steering columns, automatic transmissions, heated seats, trailer-towing packages, drivers’ armrests, cruise control and four-wheel drive.
That last item may confound some expectations, given the large number of high-riding four-wheel-drive trucks and SUVs on Southern California roadways. But industry experts say four-wheel drive is, indeed, a much better seller in wet and snowy climates than in the Southern and Western states.
California motorists also like toys, the survey found: About 38% said they want an on-board navigation system in their next new car or truck, versus an average of just 26% in the other states. A hefty 63% of California respondents said they’d like a multi-disc CD changer, a sharp contrast to just 47% in other states who considered the ability to pack several hours of uninterrupted music on board to be important.
Asked about emerging power-plant technologies, California buyers were much more receptive than their counterparts in the rest of the country. About 28% of California respondents said they would like a vehicle with a hybrid gas and electric engine combination, versus 19% in other states; 16% here were interested in electric propulsion, in contrast to 10% elsewhere.
“Manufacturers tend to put these features into their luxury cars first,” DaCosta said. “California would seem to be a great place to test the market for some of these things in smaller cars and trucks as well.”
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John O’Dell can be reached via e-mail at john.odell@latimes.com.
