Commenter j_slez (who compiled GM and Toyota monthly sales since 2004 for us already) writes:
I saw the call for a log-scale GM plot, and since the change only took a minute I threw that together, even though I’m not a fan of it personally. It does help separate the lower-selling brands. Part of the point of the original is that they’re all low-selling. I replaced Pontiac with all of the “Old GM” brands – it doesn’t make much difference really.
Then I did Toyota. They’ve got a bit of a dive themselves of late.
Finally, for fun, I did a comparison. I took GM as Chevy and all the rest and did Toyota as Toyota and Lexus+Scion. For most of 2004 the rest of GM used to outsell the Toyota brand, with Chevy way in the lead, and now it’s a pitched battle between Chevy and Toyota, with the rest of GM well behind. If Toyota had managed to grow instead of kill Scion (hmm, sounds like GM) the rest of Toyota might be bigger than the rest of GM.
The log version of the GM chart does seem to illustrate that the rate of decline is very similar for all the brands – including Chevy.
Fascinating. What was it in Jul 05 that made GM rise so much? Since that is now double where they’re selling it’d be good to get that sort of kick again.
Lots and lots of Silverados, Suburbans, Yukons, Sierras, etc. “Employee Pricing for Everyone! Hurry hurry hurry! Sale must end!”
When those 3-year-old BOF guzzlers came off-lease in summer 2008 with gas at $4+, they got flipped at a loss for Corollas and Civics and GMAC took it in the nads. Oops.
I agree ExtraO; much nicer graph with the log scale on the vertical axis. Just one more tweak on that axis – use of the coma (or alternatively “k” for the 1,000 scale multiplier) would make it picture perfect.
allegro
A moving average plot would have been better than a log scale plot. A log scale simply makes the trend look more linear given the scale. A moving average smooths out the peaks and valleys and is typically used to show trends.
ktm – I did a central moving average plot of GM’s “core brands” and Toyota’s sales since 04. The one neat spin I put on it, though was listing each vehicle into one of the following 6 catagories: large SUV, small SUV, large car, small car, large truck, small truck. I excluded sports cars because they seem to carry such a small volume and frankly, Toyota doesn’t have any that really compare to the vette or camaro (if we really want to make an apples to apples comparison). Sorted as such with the “economic conditions” overlayed (gas prices and credit), it pointed out some really neat stuff about why GM is where they are today. I e-mailed the pdfs to Robert last night. Hopefully he posts them.
Wow, a proc gplot graph on TTAC! Have been lurking on the site for a long time but the SAS graph inspired me finally register. I know I need to get a life.