Americans continue to buy vehicles nearly as fast as they arrive on dealer lots, as the nation is rife with stories chronicling perpetually empty lots and some establishments making bank with obscene markups.
We’ll leave those latter two topics for another day. Meanwhile, despite a consumer hunger for new cars, the market is down sharply compared to this time last year – double-digit percentages, in fact.
Not a single solitary member of the B&B will be surprised to learn that supply chain headaches continue to plague the industry, restricting the number of vehicles available for delivery to customers. Last quarter – remember, most manufacturers only deem us worthy of sale reporting four times a year instead of on a monthly basis – saw a cratering of sales to 3.37 million units, down a staggering 21 percent compared to Q2 in 2021. Sure, the world has been topsy-turvy in terms of car sales for more than two years now, what with a global pandemic and chip shortages skewing data in ways we never would have imagined before we all learned the word ‘Covid’. Note some brands have yet to report their numbers.
Year-to-date, approximately 6.57 million new vehicles have been snapped up at American dealerships, down 18.5 percent from just over 8 million this time last year. If this pace is duplicated between now and when Santa Claus shows up, the market is on track for its worst showing since the bad old days when all hands were clawing their way out of the Great Recession. Still, unless something unthinkable happens on a global scale, we’re well ahead of 2009 when light vehicle retail sales bottomed out at a hair over 10 million.
It’s always fun to look at individual brands, so let’s do that. General Motors now sits atop the charts once again, after being embarrassingly usurped by Toyota for the U.S. sales crown last time around. This was thanks in no small part to a 22.9 percent overall decline across Toyota brands in this country compared to a 15.4 percent slide at GM. Dragging down RenCen most heavily was Buick, off by more than half compared to the same quarter in 2021 and so far this year. It’s not just a simple bad Q2 at the tri-shield brand, then; the entire annum has been difficult.
Across town, Ford stayed largely flat this past quarter and has weathered the year better than most, down just over 8 percent year-to-date. A strong June will result in breathless headlines saying the Glass House is up 31.5 percent which is true – for that single month. In June, Ford says they sold 1,837 F-150 Lightning pickup trucks for a total of 2,296 since the EV went on sale. In that same segment, Rivian is estimated to have sold 1,400 trucks so far this year. Tesla has yet to sell a single Cybertruck, despite all their braggadocio at its introduction all those years ago.
And, for those who enjoy small(er) pickup trucks, know that the Maverick is outselling the Ranger so far this year: 38,753 to 33,840. Think there’s any cannibalization there? Drop a note in the comments with your thoughts on that particular statistic.
[Image: Honda]
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Yep with Ranger being up-sized and the Maverick being right-sized something had to give.
If the trends hold for a bit longer wonder if Tesla will catch Nissan and VW soon. They seem to be closing on Subaru.
VW will go bankrupt soon. Just like GM did. I wonder will they call it “old VW” or create new automaker to transfer all EV business and shut down ICE part a.k.a. “Old VW” and all that brand zoo?
The German government will not let VW go bankrupt.
“The German government will not let VW go bankrupt.”
Then German government will be in default too.
Ford would have gone bankrupt like GM and Chrysler if they hadn’t hit the credit markets before they basically stopped lending.
Ford still almost went bankrupt (huge cash burn rate), but the Cash4Clunkers program saved them.
Ford sold off Land Rover/Jaguar, Volvo, Aston Martin, and a few other brands which helped Ford stave off some of the creditors. Ford also got money from the Government to set up production for making small more efficient cars. Technically Ford did not take a loan from the Government but Ford did get support. Cash 4 Clunkers did help the auto industry but they would have come back anyway.
Cars.com shows 66 new Fiats for sale in the US, including a cute 2012 500 in that nice ‘verde oliva’ color.
I think my hunch is coming true: Stellantis will not announce the brand’s departure from the US market; instead, they’ll just let it fade away.
Hopefully the dealers who fronted million-dollar Fiat renovations got some recompense for their commitment.
A modern miracle is that Mini has sold 12k vehicles YTD.
I’m really rooting for Lucid and Rivian.
https://vinfastauto.us/battery-subscription
No love for Vinfast? (Name sounds like a Carfax competitor)
I’ve said already (and none of you goobers took the bait) that I heard that Toyota is exiting the automotive business. If that *is* their plan, they have four more years at this rate (down 19% YTD).
VW’s plan is World Domination, yet their execution puts them ahead of Toyota on the Quit Completely plan (down 29% YTD).
Honda has No Plan (as always) and yet is ahead of even VW on the We’re Done plan (down 39% YTD and even better on a Quarter basis). Excellent work, Honda!
I’m glad to see Polestar has started selling cars.
“after being embarrassingly usurped by Toyota for the U.S. sales crown last time around”
You meant to say, “after selling embarrassingly crappy products they were usurped by Toyota for the U.S. sales crown last time around”
While GM certainly has had its issues, the reason why Toyota was able to pass them in sales temporarily was because GM was harder hit by the chip shortage.
Hasn’t Toyota outsold GM before? Toyota has globally been bigger than GM for a while.
I am a little confused the chart says 2.9M sold but the story quotes 3.4M sold. Only 3 not huge manufacturers are missing from the chart.
Toyota has made a real mess of the 2022 NX series launch. We’ve been trying to buy one for four months, still no luck.
Might as well wait for MY23 and avoid first-year problems.
Three major brands are up significantly from last year – Tesla, Genesis and Chrysler.
I would be curious to know what the average days in inventory is for new vehicles. Are sales down because consumers have decided to stay home, or are sales down because there are no products to sell? There is a whole lot of difference between “We’re selling everything we can build” and “We have to discount them because we built too many.”
Also: what happened to the huge lots full of incomplete vehicles? Did they all trickle to market or are they still sitting somewhere?
There aren’t any discounts out there…yet. Give it some more time, this time next year it should be a buyers market again.
I have Buicks built as far back as January that haven’t been shipped. heads should role for the incompetence and corruption. instead, millions in bonuses paid to utter failures.
Were these Buicks already built waiting for microchips or were they ordered in January and not made yet? If they were ordered then this is no different than what other car makers are experiencing. It took me 8 1/2 months to get my Maverick and there are lots of orders before mine that have not even been made. Many customers are experiencing long delays in receiving new vehicles they have ordered. Some experts are predicting the shortages and delays could last well into 2023.
But that doesn’t fit into his narrative of “GM bad”, lol
There are more cars on lots now than last year, but dealers are still playing games. Exploring ebikes for shorter trips and having some variety. At 1.5k – 2.5k with no licensing, insurance, etc. it may be what my kids begin commuting on.
It’s interesting to see Ford and GM’s stock exactly where it was in 2017.
Did this with some extras: Situation – Commute downtown twice a week paying $20-40 to park and $7.80 round trip in gas. Resolution: Bought the ninebot max with 41 mile range for $800, a 100w solar panel from Harbor Freight for $120, a $780 Jackery to store and manage the sun’s energy between the three – and it’s all going to pay for itself by the end of September.
With traffic being actually worse than it was pre-pandemic, this slower neighborhood drive is actually really destressing, and knowing that I can use it in my apartment situation is helpful. If you’re wondering how heavy it is to carry, next time you’re in the store pickup a 3 gallon water bottle in one hand and a 1 gallon in the other.
In terms of commuting, our office has power and a bike / scooter rack and I’m able to juice up at work, but have tested round trip on a single battery charge on 100 degree days and it’s been fine.
Scotty Kilmer has a review on some ebikes and escooters. He uses them. Scotty also did a review of his recently acquired used low mileage Yamaha motorcycle.
Good news, massive recession on the way to solve the supply shortages. Bad news, your money will be worth far less, forever.
I don’t know about how massive a recession would be but I have read that there will be a short recession. There are still labor shortages and product shortages although things are getting slightly better on some products. There is just enough demand out there and not enough supply of products that any recession would be short lived if anything it would give manufacturers time to catch up to demand.
It’s transitory so no worries
Why would anyone buy an overpriced Buick. GM has nothing competitive to offer period. Ford sells almost the same amount of cars with just Lincoln. I would be embarrassed to be GM ceo right now.
Blithering idiots like Mary Barra don’t GAF!
Isn’t Cadillac, Lincoln’s supposed rival?
Cadillac makes more profit on the Escalade than the entire Lincoln brand.
I think these numbers are a better measure of companies ability to source chips and perhaps other parts. Until things get back to normal, you can’t say who if doing well or poorly.
For the record, here are the brands which are up year-to-date (ranked by how far up on a unit basis):
– Tesla
– Chrysler
– Genesis
– Polestar
– Rivian
– Lucid
– Maserati
– Rolls-Royce