Chrysler Group up 20 percent, GM up 16 percent, Toyota up 60 percent. Across the board sales up 22 percent (see table.)
June sales of new cars and trucks come in stronger than the cautious estimates of analysts. Why? America’s most successful sales predictor thinks everybody needed to “make that quarter.”
Edmunds Senior Analyst Michelle Krebs names the usual suspects:
“High auto sales volumes in June can be attributed to pent-up demand, some targeted incentive programs, low interest rates and falling gas prices. According to one of the latest consumer confidence surveys, consumers think now is a good time to buy a car, and they are finding deals on the 2012 model year vehicles that need to be cleared away.”
Her colleague, Edmunds Senior Analyst Jessica Caldwell has other suspicions:
“There was great pressure from automakers to close June strong, especially after the unexpectedly weak Memorial Day holiday weekend in May. It is the end of a quarter so undoubtedly they wanted to finish big. Two weak months in a quarter would make for unfavorable reporting.”
Table courtesy Automotive News [sub]
| Automaker | June 2012 | June 2011 | Pct. chng. | 6 month 2012 |
6 month 2011 |
Pct. chng. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BMW division | 21,725 | 21,637 | 0% | 126,504 | 113,705 | 11% |
| Mini | 5,995 | 5,228 | 15% | 32,059 | 29,816 | 8% |
| Rolls-Royce | 32 | 30 | 7% | 192 | 180 | 7% |
| BMW Group | 27,752 | 26,895 | 3% | 158,755 | 143,701 | 11% |
| Chrysler Division | 26,863 | 16,529 | 63% | 167,754 | 96,068 | 75% |
| Dodge | 44,315 | 43,401 | 2% | 261,578 | 229,898 | 14% |
| Dodge/Ram | 69,425 | 65,948 | 5% | 404,061 | 349,996 | 15% |
| Fiat | 4,004 | 1,803 | 122% | 20,706 | 4,944 | 319% |
| Jeep | 44,519 | 36,114 | 23% | 241,547 | 188,924 | 28% |
| Ram | 25,110 | 22,547 | 11% | 142,483 | 120,098 | 19% |
| Chrysler Group | 144,811 | 120,394 | 20% | 834,068 | 639,932 | 30% |
| Maybach | 4 | 3 | 33% | 24 | 18 | 33% |
| Mercedes-Benz | 24,371 | 22,563 | 8% | 137,877 | 118,014 | 17% |
| Smart USA | 1,017 | 330 | 208% | 4,748 | 2,556 | 86% |
| Daimler AG | 25,392 | 22,896 | 11% | 142,649 | 120,588 | 18% |
| Ford division | 199,660 | 186,054 | 7% | 1,098,421 | 1,027,485 | 7% |
| Lincoln | 7,544 | 7,361 | 3% | 41,962 | 42,003 | 0% |
| Mercury | – | – | –% | – | 248 | –100% |
| Ford Motor Co. | 207,204 | 193,415 | 7% | 1,140,383 | 1,069,736 | 7% |
| Buick | 18,851 | 14,868 | 27% | 90,198 | 93,599 | –4% |
| Cadillac | 12,124 | 10,860 | 12% | 62,812 | 76,122 | –18% |
| Chevrolet | 180,098 | 156,838 | 15% | 961,662 | 904,538 | 6% |
| GMC | 37,677 | 32,769 | 15% | 201,041 | 187,351 | 7% |
| General Motors | 248,750 | 215,335 | 16% | 1,315,713 | 1,261,610 | 4% |
| Acura | 15,370 | 8,708 | 77% | 72,936 | 60,680 | 20% |
| Honda Division | 109,438 | 75,184 | 46% | 628,046 | 546,762 | 15% |
| Honda (American) | 124,808 | 83,892 | 49% | 700,982 | 607,442 | 15% |
| Hyundai division | 63,813 | 59,209 | 8% | 356,669 | 322,797 | 11% |
| Kia | 51,326 | 45,044 | 14% | 288,707 | 245,103 | 18% |
| Hyundai Group | 115,139 | 104,253 | 10% | 645,376 | 567,900 | 14% |
| Jaguar | 1,030 | 1,389 | –26% | 6,506 | 6,410 | 2% |
| Land Rover | 3,602 | 3,152 | 14% | 20,991 | 17,292 | 21% |
| Jaguar Land Rover | 4,632 | 4,541 | 2% | 27,497 | 23,702 | 16% |
| Maserati | 228 | 189 | 21% | 1,288 | 1,097 | 17% |
| Mazda | 19,911 | 19,307 | 3% | 143,797 | 122,379 | 18% |
| Mitsubishi | 5,411 | 8,299 | –35% | 32,873 | 44,115 | –26% |
| Infiniti | 10,436 | 6,281 | 66% | 54,377 | 47,268 | 15% |
| Nissan Division | 81,801 | 65,659 | 25% | 523,344 | 457,705 | 14% |
| Nissan | 92,237 | 71,940 | 28% | 577,721 | 504,973 | 14% |
| Porsche | 3,002 | 2,546 | 18% | 16,450 | 15,542 | 6% |
| Saab Cars NA | – | 323 | –100% | – | 3,471 | –100% |
| Subaru | 27,702 | 19,794 | 40% | 164,304 | 132,049 | 24% |
| Suzuki | 2,299 | 2,278 | 1% | 12,994 | 13,402 | –3% |
| Lexus | 20,022 | 10,773 | 86% | 12,994 | 13,402 | –3% |
| Scion | 8,400 | 3,456 | 143% | 35,121 | 26,621 | 32% |
| Toyota division | 149,373 | 96,708 | 55% | 902,843 | 698,157 | 29% |
| Toyota/Scion | 157,773 | 100,164 | 58% | 937,964 | 724,778 | 29% |
| Toyota | 177,795 | 110,937 | 60% | 1,046,096 | 812,788 | 29% |
| Audi | 12,664 | 10,051 | 26% | 65,158 | 55,909 | 17% |
| Bentley | 223 | 178 | 25% | 1,077 | 843 | 28% |
| VW division | 38,170 | 28,444 | 34% | 208,725 | 154,125 | 35% |
| Volkswagen | 51,057 | 38,673 | 32% | 274,960 | 210,877 | 30% |
| Volvo Cars NA | 7,107 | 7,100 | 0% | 34,618 | 36,304 | –5% |
| Other (estimate) | 262 | 256 | 2% | 1,572 | 1,533 | 3% |
| TOTAL | 1,285,499 | 1,053,263 | 22% | 7,272,096 | 6,333,141 | 15% |
Bill Heard? Really?
Toyota? Up 60%? Huh? Where? I assume that is a projection, but why so high?
Recently our neighbor, who owned a Camry a few years old, was looking at something different, but when she turned in her leased car, Toyota basically made her an offer she couldn’t refuse. They forgave her over-the-limit-mileage, gave her free service and I think basically bought her as a customer.
Perhaps I answered my own question…
If that’s true, will a practice like that come back to bite them?
It’s only a problem if they have to eat a chunk of depreciation and/or the new lease is fundamentally unprofitable. I’m guessing that they looked at the likely street value of the car she was returning and felt that they could swing this deal profitably.
I’d guess she was happy enough with the car or she wouldn’t have gone for it.
Seems like I see new Camrys everywhere.
Toyota’s offering cash on the hood right now, likely because the 2013s are coming soon. Nevertheless, people often confuse dealer margins with manufacturer discounts. They hear about transaction prices $1500-2000 under sticker and assume the manufacture is giving the car away.
There’s about a $2k difference between MSRP on the Camry. According to Edmunds, the Camry LE is selling for about $400-$500 over invoice. Toyota’s not losing a dime. And the dealers likely don’t mind either, because they’re selling 40k Camrys a month.
Moreover, the dealer likely saw your neighbor’s late-model Camry as a goldmine. The mileage penalty is usually just leverage to get you to buy/lease again, anyway. In this case, the lease residual was probably below market value, given Cash for Clunkers and the tsunami; The dealer made up for the mileage write-off and then some.
Finally, free service is the cheapest giveaway out there. It amounts to 3-4 oil changes. It’s a whole 100 bucks already built into the price of the car.
No, this isn’t going to come back to haunt Toyota. The new car’s a hit, and the sales, good word of mouth, high resale and repeat buyers will continue. I know that disappoints some people in these parts, but their dreams of a top-selling domestic just aren’t gonna happen anytime soon, if at all.
Not soon maybe, but then I think these things go in cycles and the USA companies will again be on top, just not for a while as you say.
Toyota just south of Cleveland has every blade of grass covered. You can see where the property ends as they have Camrys lined up like a division fence. As we know car production is counted when it leaves the production line. Guess who is aiming for the top spot again, recalls be damn!
The main reason Toyota is so far up year over year is that they were just about out of product last June due to the tsunami. A small divisor, last year’s June sales, makes for huge % increases just getting back to their usual share, and they are very aggressive for every sale as well.
Remember, they are comparing to June 2011 – they had no inventory – close to their basement at that time, so the 60% number is quite achievable.
How can Lexus’ sales go from 10,773 in June 2011 to 20,022 in June 2012, but the percent change is only 1%…?
Also, what’s driving Scion’s sales?
I believe they sold 2600 FRS’s this month. That would be a big chunk of the increase.
The Lexus percentage is wrong. However, AN has not corrected the table, and I won’t touch it.
From the TMS press release:
“Lexus reported passenger car sales of 10,247 units, up 99.7 percent from June 2011. The ES 350 entry luxury sedan led Lexus passenger car sales with sales of 3,780 units, while the IS luxury sports sedan reported sales of 2,572 units. The CT 200h premium hybrid compact posted 1,387 units.
Lexus luxury utility vehicles recorded sales of 9,775 units, up 61.4 percent over June 2011. Lexus light truck sales were led by the RX and RX Hybrid luxury utility vehicle, which posted combined June sales of 8,641 units. The GX 460 mid-size luxury utility vehicle reported sales of 808 units, while the LX luxury utility vehicle recorded sales of 326 units. “
At first glance, it looks like the 500 hasn’t hurt Mini sales, they’re up over last year. But they’re one of the few that isn’t showing double-digit increases, so I’d guess the 500 has stolen some Mini buyers, while expanding the cute small car market to some who couldn’t quite afford Mini’s prices.
Niedermeyer called the 500 a flop last fall
https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2011/11/fiat-500-yup-its-flopping/
but it’s on pace to break 40,000 units this year. Is it out of the woods?
I’m sure they will never admit that they were wrong and Fiat might actually do ok. Add a couple of models (Panda anybody?) and I think Fiat could be a nice niche compact marquee. It would be nice to see how many of the sales are from the Abarth models (and how many are fleet) too but it seems like they are doing ok.
Fiat will keep improving. They don’t even have a dealership in Chicago yet (just the suburbs)!
They have a brilliant location in downtown Chicago and are opening it later this summer. It will be owned by a guy named Tony, who was a Fiat mechanic before he emigrated from Italy to the US. Yes, really.
Considering Mazda has a hot new vehicle that’s aimed squarely at a popular part of the market, I’m surprised they’re only up 3% over last June.
I think I’ll hunt around and look for their sales by model.
Jeep seems to be making up a huge portion of Chrysler growth this month, up 8,405 units since last year. That’s more than all the other divisions growth combined (5,678)!
Yeah, Wrangler and Grand Cherokee are doing real well. The other Jeep offerings not so much.
In my area there’s a 90 day wait for a Wrangler or Grand Cherokee if another dealer that has what the customer wants is not willing to exchange it. Makes for a lot of travel and/or padded MSRP.
Know one gentleman who paid full MSRP plus exchange costs plus transportation costs to get the Grand Cherokee his wife wanted out of Colorado. And then he had to travel another 200 miles to pick it up at the dealer who handled the exchange for him.
why didn’t your friend take advantage of the $1000 cash back or 0% financing that Jeep is offering on the Grand Cherokee?
He bought his GC last October before we bought ours in Phoenix in November. That was before the $1K discount in our region.
He did take advantage of the $500 military discount, and so did I, but in his case the added costs were the transportation and the Colo dealer wanted a hefty fee for giving up the vehicle, which put him almost two grand over MSRP, plus tax, title, registration, license plate and smogtest fee.
if jeep is offering 0% or 1k rebate…then they must not be moving as fast as they did last October….no reason to offer that rebate if those vehicles are moving that quickly.
Jeep sold 12,505 Jeep Grand Cherokees in June…a nice number.
At 1k incentive per unit, that 12.5 million dollars Jeep spent to move those vehicles. Good for them…but your story about ‘hard to get’ Jeeps falls a bit short when the facts are laid out.
The hard to get reference is to what the customer wants, not what the local dealer has in stock.
So it is possible that dealers may have a lot of blacks ones, or white ones, or silver ones or ones with too much equipment, or not the equipment that a customer wants. But they don’t have what the customers are looking for. Hence the cash on the hood.
What is very hard to get in my area is any Wrangler in Dozer or Orange with the hard top, V6, Quadra-Trac II and manual transmission plus the right mix of equipment to match the customers’ wants.
The second most difficult one to get is the Grand Cherokee in ANY color other than black, white or silver with the Quadra-Trac II and the 5.7 V8.
Even a GC in any color other than black, white or silver, with the V6 and QTII is a rare find. Most come equipped with Quadra-Drive I AWD and a boat load of options.
Ironically, all of those are also the ones most in demand, at least in MY area. The most popular trim level for the GC is actually the Laredo with the E package. Excellent value all around.
There are plenty of Limiteds, Overlands and Summits available but they’re not selling because very few customers are buying those. Not everyone is willing to plop down $48K, $54K or $64K, even if they can. That’s why you see cash on the hood.
So the ‘facts’ you are referring to obviously are not the same ones that I base my comments on. If the dealer doesn’t have what the customer wants, the dealer doesn’t sell anything.
My friend had to get his GC out of Colo because it was a unique color and trim level. It was the only one in this region like that.
BMW’s sales were essentially flat, especially sales of the new F30 3-series. Any idea if that was due to supply issues or pricing? The word I’m hearing from both my friends in the dealership network and from those looking at cars is that the pricing structure for the new 3-series has really turned off a lot of people, but I’m not sure if that’s anecdotal or not.
Maybach’s growth rate is impressive.
Volt outsells the Prius Plug-In more than 2:1 and the Leaf more than 3:1. Overall electric market remains weak:
Volt: 1,760
Prius Plug-In: 695
Leaf: 535
iMev: 33
S: Refused to release numbers
Karma: Refused to release numbers
Am I the only one who’s somewhat surprised at how little demand there’s been for these electric cars? I thought that with gas prices trending up and the Volt and the Leaf costing about what people happily pay for near-luxury sedans like the 3-Series and C-Class, they would have established themselves as greener alternatives by now.
Rolls-Royce up 7%
They sold TWO more cars :)
Easier to afford a new econobox than a house. America is going to STAY in recession until the housing market turns around. Car sales aren’t changing anything.
I agree. Things don’t look rosy for the remaining half of this year. All those negative things that the economic forecasters have been saying seem to be coming true one after another.
Improved car sales are great but that is only because this is the best time to buy. The future is pretty uncertain and with Obama poised to be re-elected for four more years that brings on its own insecurity of what an Obama second-term has in store for us.
Still, it is only the people who have money or who are employed that do the buying. All the others are just SOL.
Well, I’m not sure what a 2nd Obama term has in store, but I know a Romney term means a war with Iran. He’s not being shy about saying it either.
Yep, I do believe you’re right.
It has been a long time coming and unless Iran capitulates its nuclear program like Libya did, someone will eradicate it for them.
My guess is that Israel will exercise its right to strike pre-emptively because it is an existential threat to them and will drag America into the fray.
But that would happen with Obama in the White House as well. I think Iran is an issue that will have to be solved no matter who’s in the White House or who’s in control of Congress.
I’m amazed that it has been delayed this long. The sooner we get that over with the sooner we can effect changes in North Korea.
I’d hope that we’ve learned enough from the Iraq debacle to not get involved in a prolonged occupation/ground-war in Iran. If we need to make selective air strikes against military and infrastructure targets, fine, but let’s just get in, get it done, and let the Iranians sort out the mess on their own.
North Korea is a different story. They’re like that little chihuahua that thinks it’s a Rottweiler, they make a lot of noise but they imagine themselves a much greater threat than they are. I believe the best quote about NK’s recent attempted missile launch was that it was just another example in their “unblemished track record of failure”. They do unfortunately seem to have enough soviet-era artillery parked in the mountains within range of Seoul to actually do some damage if the whim strikes (and if any of it actually still works) and for that reason, along with the fact that the actual people of NK are victims of the regime as much as their targeted neighbors, we’d rather buy them off with food aid than get into a conflict.
In either case money spent on foreign ground wars could be better focused on jump starting the economy back home.
Restarting the economy in the US does not appear to be high on the list of priorities of this current administration. A lot of the unemployed are enjoying the welfare ride so generously provided by the other workers.
That’s one reason I believe that so many people are living around this administration and won’t show up to vote in November. Many people, myself included, see Obama and Romney as the same evil incarnate for America. Neither will do diddly to improve my lifestyle.
I’m an Independent, so I vote my conscience. But in all honesty I won’t vote for Obama nor will I vote for Romney. And having said that, I should add that I have learned to live around Obama and his policies, and I do believe that more people (who can) are doing the very same; bailing out of the system and getting on the benefits bandwagon.
I could write a dissertation on the benefits of not working under Obama’s policies starting with my brothers who chose to sell their dealerships, take the money and ran.
One of the downsides is that we’re losing both our primary care doctor and our surgeon now that Obamacare is settled law. Neither one of them wants to be forced to take on Medicaid patients and get paid even less for seeing Medicare patients. So they’re bailing, like so many others, who can.
And Romney isn’t going to make things better for old people like me. Romney was the father of all of Obamacare.
But wars are inevitable. Iran may very well be next, with the ensuing nation-building that will cost us Trillions. FDR tried to avoid war, but it was inevitable. His policies were misinterpreted as weakness, just like Obama’s policies are being interpreted as indecisiveness.
So do either of them plan to suspend the cuts in troop strength to fight this war? Or are we going to sweep that under the rug and move back to 15+ month deployments with 9 month turnarounds in between.
The all volunteer force doesn’t work for this sort of sustained conflict. There is an awful lot of talk about Iran being a pushover and how the populace would be on our side which sounds a lot like Rumsfeld speaking on Iraq.
I pray we have a serious discussion and debate as a nation before we commit to this and if we do commit we go all in. It is disgusting how we have left the troops in Afghanistan flapping over the politics of looking weak in ending a war the nation no longer has the will to fight. Crap or get off the pot.
Iran will not be easy. Most of the deadliest IEDs and the expertise to make them came from Iran. They may be unable to beat us, but they know how to keep us from winning. How long do you think a war weary nation will stomach another conflict with no definable victory especially if Romney wins and the pictures of flag drapped coffins and the nightly body count return to the evening news.
But the defense contractors will continue to do well I suppose.
mkirk, you won’t get any answers to your question from either Obama or from Romney. Neither has the decisiveness to act forcefully and both rely on poll watchers to force a decision. Hence the flip-flopping. With both of them its all about getting elected. The only job they worry about is their own.
As a Nam vet I did my year of combat, mostly loading bombs on F4 Phantoms or servicing the munitions on AC47 Gunships, but it was all a charade, since all the shots were called from the White House during my tour in Nam. We weren’t allowed to ‘win’ then either. It was frustrating for the chain-of-command to have to get approval from the White House for any decisive strike. So they bombed a lot of jungle instead, or risk running out of fuel.
One of my sons retired from the Marine Corps several years back and he would have stayed for 35 if politics had not held back the military in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The defense contractors will always do well because everyone has their price, and so it is with the support function contractors as well.
Some of the deals on 12 Detroit vehicles are incredible. These deals will put the pressure on Toyota and Honda to offer bigger rebates. Many Detroit vehicles are sporting 2K rebates.
so…..detroit is leading the way on incentives on vehicles that compete with Honda and Toyota? Really???
you want to lay these ‘many’ vehicles sporting 2k rebates from detroit and compare the rebates to Honda and Toyota?
chrylser…maybe…but go for it….be sure to list the incentives on the sonic, cruze, 2013 malibu, equinox, camaro, terrain, verano etc.
when you step up to the 7-8 passenger crossovers and do find a 2k rebate, make sure to include the average transaction price on those that still dominate the industry segment before you hype the 2k rebate on those vehicle about to be refreshed in 2013.
Chrysler was only 33k units behind Toyota and has 2 strong vehicles going into large markets where there is almost no Chrysler presence. The stage is set for large Chrysler marketshare increases. I bet the Pentastar Ram with industry leading gas mileage will put Mopar on Toyota’s bumper and the Dart will slingshot them around the sewing machine makers. After that comes the new 9 speed Cherokee, the 8 speed Grand Cherokees, the 200 replacement, the 4 door Fiat 500, 3.0L diesels in all rearwheel drive vehicles, the product cadence will be awesome.
With the upcoming Dart and the Pentastar in the Ram Chrysler is on the verge of having a top to bottom competitive lineup for the first time in many years.
The tricky part is going to be keeping the pace of improvements and gains of sales over time. It’s easy to have major improvements YOY when you’re comparing it to a disastrous previous record.
Chrysler’s biggest sin in the past has been letting innovative and desirable products get stale on the vine. The Neon, PT Cruiser, Pacifica, and Crossfire all had a lot going for them at launch before they got left behind by the rest of the industry. On the plus side Chrysler has done a great job on the refresh of the LX vehicles, and maybe now with some strong leadership by Marchionne the troubles of Daimler and Cerberus management can be left behind. The trick will be committing to a relentless alternating refresh and redesign schedule every three to four years and balancing that against the reintroduction and expansion of the Fiat and Alfa Romeo brands in the US.
Poor quality hurt the Neon. Mr. Eaton said ‘get them on the truck’ and not caring if cheaper head gaskets fail. They assumed people would buy new bigger, more profitable Mopar if Neon broke down. Was the same school of thought on Vegas and Pintos. No, instead went to other brands.
Poor Suzuki. How much longer?