10 Terms You Need To Know To Get A Job In The Auto Industry

1. Conquest

‘Conquest’ is a word you’ll hear thrown about a lot if you work in a developmental or strategic capacity at a car company - directors, product planners and marketers are examples of these. The term refers to customers who currently own a car made by another brand.

Attracting a high number of conquest customers to a product line-up represents something of a holy grail for car companies, since these are the hardest types of customer to sell to. Often, new car buyers remain loyal to one brand, perceiving the switch to another to be too much hassle and something of a gamble.

2. Grade

A vehicle’s grade is a designation applied to determine its position within the range line-up. Outside the industry, grade is sometimes referred to as ‘trim’ or ‘spec’, but these terms are incorrect. Trim refers to the materials used to finish a vehicle’s interior and exterior, while spec is the combination of technological, comfort and convenience features that a vehicle is equipped with. It’s particularly important to know your grades of vehicle if you are working in sales, since higher grades typically make more profit.

3. Mix

A mix is the portion of a model’s sales that is accounted for by certain grades, body styles, powertrains, and fleet and retail customers in a year. Commercial directors and sales planners will set mix targets for markets to achieve; for example they might ask for a powertrain mix of 70 per cent diesel, 25 per cent petrol and five per cent plug-in hybrid.

4. Pace

Pace is the rate at which a particular model is selling. It’s of interest to just about everyone in an automotive business - from those who build cars to those who market them. Pace can be affected by everything from cooling markets to weak exchange rates, or simply the fact that consumers don’t like a certain product enough to buy it.

5. Plan and challenge

Plan and challenge are terms used to measure the sales successes of new cars. Plan is the minimum number of unit sales that a model must achieve in a given year. Challenge is the number of unit sales that a model’s maker would like to achieve in the year - it is always higher than the plan figure.

Occasionally, company directors address staff and media to update them on their plan and challenge figures, where you may hear them say something like: “Achieved plan” or “Almost at challenge”.

6. SOP

A simple acronym this one, used by those involved in vehicle production and by public relations specialists. SOP stands for ‘Start of Production’ and is used when informing relevant staff and journalists of when a new model will first come off the line for the commencement of series production.

7. Segment share

Passenger vehicles, as any CTzen will know, sit in size-defined segments. To that end, there’s no prizes for guessing what segment share is - it’s the portion of segment sales that a model accounts for. Segment share is a vitally important success determinate for a model, since it helps see exactly how well a car is fairing against the competition.

8. HP and PCP

75 per cent of new cars in the UK are purchased on some sort of finance agreement and HP and PCP are the most common pair. HP stands for ‘hire purchase’. It involves placing a deposit on a vehicle and then making monthly interest-based payments for an agreed term that enable the buyer to own the car. PCP, which stands for ‘Personal Contract Purchase’, allows customers to put down a much lower deposit and make payments for an agreed term. At the end of that term, they then have the choice of making a final ‘balloon payment’ to purchase the car, or can hand it back to the dealer to secure an agreed trade-in price.

9. Walk-up

A walk-up is the difference between the monthly payments on lower and higher grades of cars for customers purchasing on a finance payment plan. Finance planners take time to ensure that the walk-ups on new vehicles are low, to enable/encourage consumers to purchase more desirable model grades.

10. Minor model change

A minor model change is a suite of revisions that car makers introduce to a model, which are not as extensive a midlife facelift. Minor model changes usually happen yearly and are designed to keep models competitive. They typically involve the introduction of new accessories and changes to powertrains and grades.

Prior to his current job as Motoring Editor at a communications agency, Eliott spent two and a half years working on the Toyota and Lexus social team. The list above is compiled based on the knowledge he gained while employed at Toyota GB’s headquarters - if you have any other questions about working for a major manufacturer, head to the comments and ask!