Detroit’s “last man standing” has taken another one in the chest, as March sales stats reveal a 41-percent drop compared to last year. The Blue Oval Boyz are in full spin mode, proclaiming an enlarged (if unspecified) retail market share, “growing awareness and consideration of Ford and its high-quality, fuel-efficient products” and, oh, yes, have you heard about Ford’s Advantage Program? Still, there is a bounce here, as dead cats GM and Chrysler take it on the chin (exact facial damage to follow). “Ford sales increased 30 percent compared with [a thoroughly miserable, unprofitable] February 2009 with retail sales up 34 percent [compared to February’s thoroughly miserable, unprofitable stats] and fleet sales up 22 percent [compared to February’s thoroughly miserable, unprofitable stats]. As incentive spending is also up, those numbers don’t do much for that whole viability thing. High profit SUVs’ 73.2-percent nosedive can’t help the bottom line, either.
The Taurus (and the X) is dead in the water, with sales down 45.6 percent. Small cars? No help there. The Focus fell 41.4 percent. If the car market wasn’t constipated, you could write off Ford’s entire luxury division. Sales of Lincoln’s best performing vehicle (the MK somethingorother) sank 32 percent. Year-to-date, the Town Car is the champ (at -28.6 percent).
Volvo? Volvo is so NSFWed the PR people forgot to put the minus sign in front of the numbers for the V70, C70 and C30.
Discounting the old stuff (and how) and the Mustang model changeover effect, Ford’s biggest loser is its former savior, the Explorer. Sales tumbled 69.8 percent for the month and 63.5 percent year-to-date.
Question: how long can Ford afford take these hits without staggering over to the federal bailout buffet?
Hmmm, am I being presumptuous, here, or are reports of Ford’s survival greatly exaggerated….?
41%? That’s a lot.
It’s April Fools!
Looks like Chryler’s results are out at 3:30 PM today. That should be interesting. VW’s are out on their site, and surprisingly, they sold more Routans in March than February. Probably because of the 0% for 60 months though.
Oddly enough, Subaru’s results aren’t bad, and almost entirely because the Forester did well. I assume that’s because the redesign was not yet available in March 2008?
Wow, this is horrible. Well, at least America still can produce aircraft and software.
Hmmm, am I being presumptuous, here, or are reports of Ford’s survival greatly exaggerated….?
They are. I have read that Ford is only 9-12 months behind GM.
Ford has spent a mint on re-skinning their cars and trucks…and it will not help. People are just not buying.
Just think of the dollar amount spent on the D3 platform from 2005 to 2009. Ford won’t be turning a profit on that platform alone for the next Five Hundred years.
Possibility that the rollout of the new fusions and mustangs had an effect on there figures for the month.
By Robert Farago
April 1, 2009
Question: how long can Ford afford take these hits without bellying-up to the bailout buffet?
————————————————–
Not very long, if the Fed keeps helping out GM.
In fact, at the rate of roughly $5B/month federal subsidy to GM, even Toyota would be out of business in North American in 10~20 years. No one is going to beat that.
Hmmm, am I being presumptuous, here, or are reports of Ford’s survival greatly exaggerated….?
Ford is trapped playing last-man-standing. All they have to do is prove themselves viable just long enough for GM and/or Chrysler to fail. Even if they require a bridge loan, it’s not going to face nearly the same opposition, between numbness and the fact that they’ve actual, honest-to-god product.
The problem with this strategy is that Toyota, Honda and Hyundai are in the same situation, and are much healthier. It doesn’t help that the government is dragging their feet on killing Chrysler.
But Chrysler will be liquidated in less than 30 days. Ford can make it for at least that long.
And in less than 60 days, we get a much smaller GM in bankruptcy consisting of Chevy and Cadillac.
“KatiePuckrik :
April 1st, 2009 at 11:30 am
Hmmm, am I being presumptuous, here, or are reports of Ford’s survival greatly exaggerated….?
41%? That’s a lot.”
There’s no doubt about it. That IS a lot. But understand what we’re talking about year-over-year figures. The means sales are down 41% compared to March of 2008, not February of 2009. And it makes sense: If the U.S. auto market has collapsed and has yet to recover, every month this year will be down similarly compared with last year – right up until October, when the bottom fell out of everything in 2008.
Ford says it has gotten enough concessions from the UAW and reduced production enough to get by at this rate – even if the economy gets a bit worse. Many people on these boards don’t believe that. But that’s Ford’s position and I do tend to believe them.
However… there is this to consider: If GM makes it through a fast, federally controlled bankrupcty and emerges as a lean and mean automaking machine, ready to make money cranking out new-and-improved Chevys and Caddys, what kind of position will Ford be in then – without the benefit of a bankruptcy to cut costs to the level enjoyed by GM at that point? It’s almost like Ford will be penalized for having done the right thing without the government’s help.
Still, it’s not like Ford hasn’t been able to cut costs at all. And if the new vehicles they have in the pipeline are as appealing to customers as they need to be – and the economy begins to recover at the end of the year – perhaps they’ll be fine. But no one on these boards, including myself, knows what the outcome will be.
Robert—not trying to make lemonade out of lems because there is no way you can make a turd sandwich (March -41% vs YA) taste good.
That said—a little context on Lincoln. While sales slid -33 vs YA—-not much worse than Acura (-30%) and much better than Lexus (-40%) and Cadillac (-53%). Said another way…everything is relative.
Also–still confuses me that everyone is proclaiming the Hyundai Genesis as the next coming in luxury sedans—and most on this site pan the Lincoln MKS. Yet the MKS sold more than the Genesis last month and sold a respectable 1716 units in March—continuing a positive month-on-month sales trajectory. I know—pimple on the ass of a rhino—but just saying.
Keep in mind that GimmeMoney and Cryslur had an extra $1200 of our dollars on the hood compared with Ford.
Level the field and they will look better.
Every Ford autoworker, dealer, mechanic and sales person outta let the Gov’t know this isn’t fair.
Bunter
@Bunter1:
But this isn’t about being fair, it’s about being powerful or popular.
It isn’t fair!
Oh well back to work.
Anyone wanna buy a Ford?
He He
Figures lie and Liars Figure!
Just numbers, have fun reading them.
Steve Biro gets it in his comments above.
It makes for nice, sensational headlines to scream to the world for attention when comparing to last years sales.
Trying to compare this years new vehicle sales when we are bottoming out to last years sales when the car business was at the beginning of the slide is like comparing apples and oranges.
In our Ford dealership, foot traffic (customers have to go past front desk to get to our lot, so numbers are tracked) was higher in February than it was last July, which is traditionally a busy month.
Granted, many of these customers are just starting their shopping and credit is still an issue. Many customers are opting for used cars. As we are not carrying the same size of inventory that we used to, more customers are custom ordering, which takes around two months to come in and won’t count as a sale until then.
I won’t say we are out of the woods yet, but it starts with customers coming into the show room. As a saleman, my earnings have climbed month over month since November, not by leaps and bounds, but steadily. Also, our March sales were better than February’s, which was better than January’s.
Of course, those kinds of glimmers of hope don’t make for an exciting head line.
Let’s talk about a few things related to this number:
1) Incentive spend. Ford’s incentive spend has been stable realtive to, say, GM, Chrysler, Hyundai or even Toyota. A couple models in particular are very interesting. The Edge’s rental sales and incentive have absolutely plummeted in Q1. What you are seeing in the Edge’s sales numbers are sustainable levels for Edge sales that protect residuals. Flex is in a similar position. More profitable vehicles like the F-series also have drastically reduced incentives with the new model. The new Fusion model will have lower incentive spend as well over the next few months.
2) Fleet sales. The % of Ford sales to rental fleets have been significantly lowered so far this year – almost in half. Discounts on fleet sales are down as well. And after crunching the numbers, retail sales are down ~36% and they probably picked up some share.
3) Large SUVs. The Expedition’s plunge is about half related to the lack of inventory (the other half being industry and incentive spend reductions). It hasn’t been produced since November and just started Monday.
4) Conquest sales at Ford are improving. And, most notably though is that traffic is strong relative to the industry (which means that they don’t need $5,000 rebates to close a deal). And much of this traffic is not traditional Ford shoppers.
It’s not a great set of news, but there’s not a lot to be upset about. I mean, when the industry is down 38%, if you’re down 41%, you’re not far off. It’s not like the industry was flat. And given their incentive landscape is better than most of the industry, fleet sales are down even more and conquest is up, it’s not that bad really.
It’s almost like Ford will be penalized for having done the right thing without the government’s help.
Actually, that’s exactly what it’s like, and just one more thing (maybe the biggest thing) that’s wrong with the government propping up the once great GM. Not only are they throwing away taxpayer dollars, they are helping to destroy the least sick of the sickly 3. The result is the destruction of the domestic automaker currently making the best business decisions with the best overall lineup, in favor of the domestic automaker that has squandered away a fortune in dollars and an unheard of market share by consistently making poor business decisions and even poorer cars for decades now.