Mom's mobile killed by AUVs

**Gerbo** · February 15th, 2009 04:08 PM

The station wagons seems to be the most overlooked segment in the Philippines.

Suzuki has the Esteem years before. The current Optra lags in sales. Other carmakers seem to forget about it. What gives?

BTW, what's the technical difference between this and an MPV?

**ghosthunter** · February 15th, 2009 06:39 PM

Originally Posted by Gerbo

The station wagons seems to be the most overlooked segment in the Philippines.

BTW, what's the technical difference between this and an MPV?

Stationwagons/estates vs MPV

Estates = more car based design

MPV = more van based design

**niky** · February 16th, 2009 03:03 PM

It's local conditions that hurt the sales of estates compared to regular cars. When people are looking for space, you can't beat AUVs... especially thanks to the misguided tax breaks they used to receive for being "utility vehicles" (yeah, a Revo or Crosswind with leather seats and LCD monitors makes a great taxi... :hysterical: ) and the fact that they're sold here at all, thanks to non-existent crash safety legislation.

It's strange, though, in the Philippines, where bigger is better, that the sedan is king... you'd think Pinoys would love hatchbacks more. When Nissan released the California, it was relatively well-received, makes you wonder why they didn't follow through...

**ghosthunter** · February 16th, 2009 05:42 PM

Could it be that the estate cars were more popular in the US and Europe but less popular in the asian countries? Add to that is the ride of the early mini SUVs.

Plus the local estate cars didn't really fill a demand in the local market. People didn't really haul that much stuff in the rear compartment on a regular basis as compared to other countries. And then the availability of small vans as people and cargo carriers too like the L300, lite-ace, hiace, urvan, etc.