Autoblog: "You're going to be reading in the mainstream press about how horrible sales were in the U.S. during June, 2008. Yes, they were bad for many automakers, but consider that there were only 24 selling days last month versus 27 days in June, 2008. This makes comparing raw sales numbers misleading, since there were three fewer days to sell. Thus, as always, all the percentages below represent the change in Daily Sales Rate, i.e. the average number of vehicles sold per day, not the change in raw number of vehicles sold." TTAC joins Automotive News in rejecting this metric. We go by cars sold per month. Period. That said, TTAC got caught-out when Automotive News started with adjusted numbers, then revised to non-adjusted numbers. But no matter how you crunch these stats, they ARE horrible. "Not That Bad Edition"? The idea that any credible news organization would say otherwise is almost as astounding as the chaos afflicting the U.S. new vehicle market. How about this: there are industry players in Detroit who ascribe to Autoblog's Pollyanna philosophy. And while you're thinking about that (or something), Justin and I perform our usual reality check.
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Okay, 24 selling days last month and 27 last year? I count 25 selling days (30 days minus 5 Sundays) for June 2008 and 26 (30 days minus 4 Sundays) for June 2007. No holidays in June (Father’s Day always Sunday). Am I missing something? Did people take a day off to celebrate the Celtics’ NBA title? Were we docked a Sunday off for letting the Spurs win last year?
I’m just going on gut feeling, but it seems like companies would sell MORE cars on Sunday than most weekdays. Maybe DSR should be adjusted the other way?
Between the subprime mess and the gas prices you can’t tell me that this is a surprise to anyone. Add to the fact that this is a traditionally slow time as any buyer will want to wait for the new releases and you get this. Just wait for August. You’ll see a sinkhole that you’ll swear will go to the center of the earth.
3 mpg?!!!! I can’t believe that anyone would ignore that sort of suckage no matter how rich they are. Just the inconvience of having to fill up every damn day would be a turnoff. I don’t know what VW is thinking.
@ Seoultrain
Many states make it illegal for car dealers to be open on Sundays. I know thats the case in Illinois.
As for Robert’s podcast; I don’t remotely agree. The number of selling days per month is tremendously important. If you have more days per month, you can sell more cars. Less days equals less cars. Its not a hard concept to grasp, even though some people seem to be trying mighty hard. You could argue that the dealers should compensate for the fewer days, but that would make an already stressful dealer experience for consumers, even worse.
Either way you cut it, this month’s sales were awful, but they weren’t as bad as Robert and automotive news wants us to believe.
OUCH 3mpg, maybe there is something wrong with your Bentley, like a hole in the gas tank. Speaking of tank does it have a 25 gallon or more tank so you don’t have to fill up in the morning and again at lunch if you have even a moderate commute to work. Justin it must be costing you a fortune to look cool driving it, since it runs on premium and that’s what $4.50-4.60 a gallon now.
FYI – June 2 was considered a selling day in May. That is why if you roll back your TTAC logs to June 2 you found that nobody reported sales that day. Rather, June 3 became the day to report May sales and May sales included June 2.
I think TTAC has its work cut out for itself if the auto industry is so full of weirdness that they can’t even report a month of sales without some shenanigans.
Sales figures for a month irrelevent of how many selling days is the way to go.
The opposite would be to adjust for selling days, for floods, heavy rain, snow storms, forest fires, wild fires….and on and on.
So if it was the other way around (27 days this year and 24 last year), would TTAC be talking about how great the sales were compared to last year even though gas is so expensive?
Abrams tanks take about 3 gallons per mile, the Honeywell HGT1500 turboshaft is quite thirsty. Great power to weight, super compact and quick to replace, but very thirsty.
So Sundays don’t count, and the first Monday of the next month gets lumped in for some reason? Is that how that works?
Forget about the selling days game, what about revenues and gross margin?
Not all unit sales are created equal, or even close to it!
Also, most costs care not a bit how many mythical selling days were in a month. Rents, mortgages, insurance, salaries and the like all need to be paid.
As per request, it’s been a while, don’t quote me on these figures. However, I don’t know of a modern tank that gets a mile per gallon.
The M4 Sherman tank that ran gasoline weighed in at about 30 tons and got was less than 1 mile per gallon, maybe 1.5 gallons per mile.
The M60 Patton, which I got to drive, was a bit of a beast at 50 tons. It drank about 3 or 4 gallons per mile. It took talent to drive the thing cross country without hurting machine or occupants at a decent pace.
The M1 Abrams doesn’t even have a gallon per mile stat because of the turbine. It actually burns gallons per hour depending on throttle. Even idle will run you something like 15 gph.
Also, it will burn about anything, so you would have to have a figure like this (with my guesstimate as answer):
Start up to shut down, 35 miles, 35 mph, highway, no stops, JP8 fuel = 245 gallons or app. 7 gallons per mile. (It will go much faster, but usually doesn’t due to safety and the fact that the support vehicles are much slower)
That’s a lot of fuel, and it is an issue on the battlefield. However, they are low maintenance, high power, and if you can keep your speed under control you can roll over lots of stuff that would break lesser tanks while hardly noticing. It is the cadillac of the desert, with excellent suspension, and firepower, and still the best though not the newest. It may be the last US MBT made with a full crew, or with any crew at all.
The tankers LOVE those machines, and with good reason. Given that the US has the greatest Air Force in the world (by far), an M1 is a pretty safe place to be on the modern battlefield (obviously a relative concept).
If you thank a tanker for his service to our country, don’t be too surprised if he thanks you back for paying for his ride.
Landcrusher, I finally see where your name comes from.
I’m sorry, I can’t focus on the industry with a picture like that next to the story. I can’t even read it.
Now, if she sold Nissans, I bet their sales wouldn’t be down so much.
wtf? May sales included June 2nd?
So I guess June 2nd, 2008 counted as May 2008, and July 2nd, 2007 counted as June 2007. That would account for 24 vs 27 instead of 25 vs 26 going by the calendar.
Is there a reason why the previous month’s sales cannot be reported on a Monday?
In the general climate of doom and gloom, it is a wonder any new cars are being sold. As for the sweet young thing draped on the Nissan, she has a lean and hungry look that I find disconcerting. The lady with the beer bottle was a lot purtier
FYI, The New York Times (America’s newspaper of record, for what it’s worth) reported Black Hole Tuesday’s sales using unadjusted numbers:
“Detroit automakers were hit hard. Ford Motor was down 28 percent in June, General Motors was off 18 percent, and Chrysler dropped 36 percent.”
Another overlooked reason: Credit. Credit has been tightening on car loans. I’m shopping around to get a used car loan on a Subaru and rates are about 1.5% higher than last year.
Uh… I’m sorry… um… did you say something?
I’m so glad you mentioned that SUV on the Simpsons. It has to be one of the best songs that makes fun of SUVs.
Instead of listing the lyrics here is a link to the text and video
Lyrics: http://artists.letssingit.com/simpsons-the-lyrics-canyonero-5pgz4jq
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoPon3xuCjE
Whoa Canyonero!
Robert-
The NYT is not america’s newspaper of record. It hasn’t been for at least 10 years. At this point its one of the last places to get reliable news.
A twin turbo W-12 makes sense, because as far as packageing goes, the VR-6 engine is a slightly widened and elongated I-4, with intake on one side of the cylinder bank and exhaust on the other. A parallel bi-turbo VR-6, and by extension quad turbo W-12, would be a packaging nightmare.
Hey, for north of $200K, go for it.