Comments by "Stephen Hendricks" (@stephenhendricks103) on "" video.

  1. Worth noting that prior to the introduction of the new Venza Toyota and Mazda were the only two mainstream manufacturers not to offer two midsize unibody SUVs in the North American marketplace. Every other automaker offered a three row vehicle and a smaller two row vehicle. (KIA is the only exception in that both the Telluride and smaller Sorento have three rows of seats.) Now Mazda stands alone in not having a two row midsize SUV in the US market. (Mazda does have CX-8 in some markets where the CX-9 isn't sold but it's not available in North America.) Other manufacturers followed one of two strategies with their midsize offerings. Either they chopped some inches off the overall length of their three row vehicle to make a two row version (e.g. Honda Pilot vs Passport, VW Atlas vs Crossport, etc.) or they built two largely different SUVs (e.g. Explorer vs Edge, Traverse vs Blazer, Pathfinder vs Murano, Palisade vs Santa Fe, etc.) Toyota could have followed one of those strategies. But if there is anything Toyota is better at than building good, reliable vehicles, it's making a profit on everything they sell. With that in mind, inserting the existing Harrier with a new badge into the North American portfolio was a slam dunk. Virtually no expensive design or major production costs. Further savings by limiting the drivetrain to the extremely popular hybrid version. The Versa is hardly a top tier, versatile SUV; it's more a modern version of a stylish station wagon. (Not that anyone from Toyota would use that forbidden term to describe the Venza.) But for the purpose of filling a hole in Toyota's lineup the Venza is an economical solution for Toyota.
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