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One way to turn those frowns upside down….do the same thing to the sales charts….no zero on this chart, and if they had one it would be on TOP!
Falls under the category, “Lies, damned lies, and automotive sales reports!”….
I don’t know if anything is wrong with it in terms of Ford, especially if you included Toyota, Honda and Nissan. GM and Cry Co. I just don’t know. I live in a town that has Ford, GM, Crysler and Toyota dealers in a row, the only one that seems to be moving cars right now is the Ford dealer and in this area (for some weird reason) people usually buy crysler and toyota cars, but seeing more and more Fusian, Edge, Flex and mustangs everyday (even saw a new taurus yesterday), same can’t be said for the other three, except for a camero here and there and the toyota dealer is running alot more specials than the Ford one.
Year to Year sales percentages are meaningless in a spiraling market. A three year trend line might give a little insight as to the fortunes of each, but all this data can tell you is one of the following:
(A) Ford had a really bad 2008 and can’t go much lower without reading Tesla volumes.
(B) GM and Chrysler both have bankruptcy stink on them right now and Ford is pulling in a couple extra buyers.
Either way, not exactly a ringing measure of success to be ‘only’ 10% lower than last year’s (dismal) sales numbers.
It’s like arguing that its preferable to be run over by a 10 tonne truck as opposed to a 30 tonne truck. The results, however, are much the same.
What’s wrong with the picture is that it is only comparing the U.S. automakers. Since these types of things are all relative, I would have wanted to see every make represented.
On second look, the graph reminds me of listening to a certain Executive trying to justify his large bonus while jobs were being slashed in 2005.
“We lost LESS money than we planned, and had monetary rewards tied to that performance.”
While the audience received no bonuses and were on edge about possibly losing their jobs…
(hint: His picture has appeared on TTAC over the last month)
Looks like Chrysler’s losses eased up just a tiny bit in Feb. and Mar. before they tanked (worse) again in April. Wonder if GM’s downward trajectory will continue?
** Sorry, my post got cut in pieces earlier – this should be clearer**
This graph is a bit deceiving for a very particular reason (although not the reason you’re looking for, RF):
Ford’s absolute market share is strong and smashed its Detroit rivals (and the Japanese, frankly) because it has plants running to build for fleets unlike most of the industry (commercial and gov’t; not really rental, that market is extremely weak right now). Ford’s *retail* sales didn’t outpace the retail industry by as much, but its fleet sales blew the industry away.
However, there are two positive reasons for this that I know few would like to admit:
1) Ford controlled its inventories better than anyone else in the industry in Q3 and Q4 last year. As a result, they had to run their factories in Q2 and they have to increase production in Q3.
2) Ford’s retail is average because its incentive spend has been low. I wouldn’t be surprised if Ford’s transaction rev (not booked – since you book when shipped) is down in the single-digits in June. It wouldn’t surprise me if the rest of the industry is down >30% compared to sales of -28%. GM and Chrysler might be down >40% and >50% respectively as they blew out inventory.
It’s not a great graph to clearly understand what’s going on right now – but probably not in the way you were thinking. Ford will likely have a good Q2 – and I’ll say it one final time, they may have a book profit depending on how many write-downs and special items they have to take. Expect a debt-equity swap announcement as well.
Now, back to the doom and gloom you like: failure of this debt exchange is what introduces more problems later… that’s my prediction, we’ll find out Thursday, and let’s stare down that canyon when Ford fails to clear it.
Watch these numbers get much worse over the next 12 months.
Anyone who thinks the economy isn’t worsening, let alone not getting worse, well…I feel for that person, especially if they are doing the whole “investment” or “averaging down” thing.
Then again, if one listens to stock market analysts or government officials…”a fool and his money are easily parted.”
Chrysler is trending up slightly… that is what’s wrong!
Chrysler OUTSOLD Ford AND GM in Feb – Mar??? Hmmm, I wonder why I didn’t hear a peep about that back in March?
(Of course, it could be becuase I’m gettin older and just forgot the Article of Truth that mentioned it.)
Yeah, I can tell you what’s wrong with this picture: people are still buying Chryslers.
What’s wrong with the picture is that our tax dollars aren’t generating the C/GM turnaround that was promised. No surprise there.
@Wolven: The chart describes sales changes, not total sales. Chrysler still has the smallest sales volume.
“Chrysler OUTSOLD Ford AND GM … ”
No exactly. Chrysler sold far fewer vehicles than either of those two, but it’s percentage drop in sales was a touch less disastrous than for GM and Ford during those two months. Sales down only 40% or so is hardly something to be excited about.
It would be helpful if the graph had a line for the entire industry average. I suspect Ford would be well above that line.
The misleading part of the chart isn’t the y-axis; it’s the x-axis.
If this chart was extended back to Jan ’06 or so, the devastating loss of sales that all three automakers have experienced during that period would be as plain as the day.
The fact that each of these three companies are still losing double-digit sales percentages YOY over the terrible summer sales months last year speaks volumes, IMHO.
And yes, one other part of the picture that’s wrong is the fact that some idiots somewhere are apparently still buying Chryslers.
@RobertSD
Ford’s retail is average because its incentive spend has been low.
What’s your source for this? According to Edmunds numbers for June 2009, Ford’s total incentive spending per vehicle sold is higher than the industry average; it’s neck’n’neck with GM, more than double Honda’s and 2.6 times Toyota’s spending. Ford also spent more than Hyundai/Kia who’s often derogatorily accused of buying sales with incentives:
Chrysler Group (Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep) – $4,873
General Motors (B/Cad/Chev/GMC/H/P/Saab/Saturn) – $3,566
Ford (Ford, Lincoln, Mercury, Volvo) – $3,531
Hyundai (Hyundai, Kia) – $3,083
Nissan (Infiniti, Nissan) – $2,631
Honda (Acura, Honda) – $1,686
Toyota (Lexus, Scion, Toyota) – $1,362
Industry Average – $2,930
http://www.autoobserver.com/2009/07/june-is-priciest-ever-for-automaker-incentives-edmundscom-reports.html
This is an utterly and presumably deliberately completely misleading chart. That is, it graphs percentage of decline, but IT’S STILL A DECLINE. The graphed ‘improvement’ is in the rate of decline. To put it differently, if Ford were to continue to lose 10% of sales every month, they’d be gone in less than a year, and even faster for the other two.
This is an utterly and presumably deliberately completely misleading chart. That is, it graphs percentage of decline, but IT’S STILL A DECLINE. The graphed ‘improvement’ is in the rate of decline. To put it differently, if Ford were to continue to lose 10% of sales every month, they’d be gone in less than a year, and even faster for the other two.
Uhhhh, wrong. This graph tracks year on year sales by month, not consecutive months. If Ford sold a total of 1 million cars last year, and they stayed at -10% for the entire year this year, they would end up at 900k sales this year.
Just wait. This is going to get much worse for the other two. Ford’s on a roll.
So it can be broken down like this:
GM – Sales going down a lot, incentives staying roughly the same (less than $100 difference from June ’08).
Ford – Sales going down (relatively) little, incentives up (up about $700 from June ’08)
Chrysler – Sales going down a lot, incentives going up a lot (up almost $1300 from June ’08).
Confusing chart because it is comparing each auto company’s sales…….to itself! (year over year performance). I suspect that the lines on this kind of chart will continue to “improve” because we’re now approaching the time where, a year ago things really started turning sour. Come October we might even see the lines hit the zero mark!
Ford’s total spend is > the industry average, yes. It has been for years. But it’s relative spend is much lower than last year. I don’t believe Edmund’s for many reasons, but incentive numbers are an area that they always seem to disagree with other sources like PIN which show Ford stable with a year ago (down relative to industry) while GM is up, Chrysler is crazy and even Toyota and Honda are showing over 30% increases in incentive spend/vehicle.
Their total number will always be higher because of full-size trucks, but relatively, they are strongly outperforming the industry on incentive spend based on data from PIN and Ford itself – just not Edmund’s.
@gslippy
Taxpayers money wasn’t spend to save GM and Chrysler but to not let them go ch7 during this downturn. It will even be good money spend if the employees of GM and Chrysler do nothing until the downturn ends and then go unemployed.
I feel that Ford is in the best position right now. With the exception of the tragic Focus, their vehicles are great and the upcoming vehicles look promising. And their public image is very good because they didn’t take TARP funds.
GM is salvageable but will take more effort. Although I’m not so sure that they know exactly what to do, they have some great products. And I think they will be a smaller leaner company focused on making great cars and not just a company that exists simply to provide benefits to people who would be otherwise earning substantially less.
Chrysler doesn’t appear to have the products, quality or design that they need to survive.
Let me clarify my point, leaving out extraneous (and probably erroneous) details. The real issue is that this graph portrays a bad thing (decline in sales) as a good thing (showing all three companies appearing to improve). The only real improvement is that they’re not getting worse as fast. It’s hard for me to believe that whoever put this thing together didn’t do it with malice aforethought. That is, it’s not only misleading, it’s deliberately misleading. On the other hand, we’ve seen this kind of commentary on the broader economy as well–e.g., because unemployment is not getting worse as fast as it was a month or two earlier things are looking up.
I geuss one bit of info on this graph is that Ford is increasing market share compared to GM and Chrysler.
Toyota and Honda were down more than Ford’s June drop………..
Ford’s in worse shape now, and their condition will continue to worsen.
The fact they didn’t take government largesse will really come back to haunt them.
Their sales are still declining, and they’re still losing money.
And mos fundamentally, the economy is getting far worse by the month.