Mitsubishi, pretty much given up for dead in the U.S. and Europe, thrives in an easily overlooked part of the world: South-East Asia. Mitsubishi has three assembly plants in Thailand, and will spend around $150 million to increase output. (Read More…)
They called it the “Ferrari of the East”: The Melkus RS 1000 was East Germany’s only sports car, “powered” by a mid-mounted Wartburg 3-cylinder 2-stroke engine. Most cars had 1 liter engine, a few were 1.2 liter mills. Fitted with gullwing doors, it looked fast. 101 cars were made between 1969 and 1979 in the Dresden factory, to buy one, you had to race it. In 2009, Sepp Melkus, grand child of founder Heinz Melkus, resurrected the company and started building the Melkus RS 2000. No more, the company is bankrupt. (Read More…)
The seventh generation of Volkswagen’s venerable and best-selling hatch, the Golf, has barely been launched in Europe, and Volkswagen is already looking into producing it abroad. Volkswagen aims at two regions that usually prefer cars with trunks: China and America. (Read More…)
16,290 people were killed in road accidents from January through June, says the NHTSA. For the first time since 2006, deaths are up. The NHTSA does not know why fatalities are up, but the usual suspects have already been rounded up. (Read More…)
The fortunes of small cars used to be tied to gas prices. Sales of compacts rose when gas prices shot up, when gas came down, big was beautiful again. Sales of small cars are up strongly in America, but this time, it’s different, think two of the US motor industry’s most senior executives. They believe that the trend won’t reverse, and that sales of small cars will go further up. (Read More…)
| Rank | Analyst | GM | Ford | Chrysler | SAAR | SAAR Diff | OEM Diff | Overall |
| 1 | Jessica Caldwell (Edmunds.com) | 1.9% | 0.7% | 8.4% | 14.4 | 3.6% | 4.5% | 8.1% |
| 2 | Jesse Toprak (TrueCar.com) | 2.5% | 1.3% | 8.1% | 14.6 | 2.3% | 6.0% | 8.3% |
| 3 | Peter Nesvold (Jefferies) | 3.7% | 2.2% | 6.1% | 14.5 | 2.9% | 10.1% | 13.0% |
| 4 | Rod Lache (Deutsche Bank) | 1.0% | 1.6% | 4.4% | 14.4 | 3.6% | 9.5% | 13.1% |
| 5 | John Sousanis (Ward’s) | 4.6% | 4.3% | 8.1% | 14.6 | 2.3% | 11.1% | 13.4% |
| 6 | Joseph Spak (RBC) | 4.0% | 4.9% | 8.0% | 14.5 | 2.9% | 11.2% | 14.1% |
| 7 | Patrick Archambault (Goldman) | 2.2% | 4.2% | 4.8% | 14.6 | 2.3% | 11.9% | 14.2% |
| 8 | Brian Johnson (Barclays) | -1.5% | -1.4% | 5.5% | 14.3 | 4.3% | 10.2% | 14.5% |
| 9 | Alec Gutierrez (Kelley) | 4.0% | 1.7% | 5.6% | 14.3 | 4.3% | 10.4% | 14.7% |
| 10 | Emmanuel Rosner (CLSA) | 3.3% | 2.0% | 4.4% | 14.4 | 3.6% | 11.2% | 14.8% |
| 11 | Chris Ceraso (Credit Suisse) | 5.0% | 4.0% | 6.0% | 14.5 | 2.9% | 13.3% | 16.2% |
| 12 | Adam Jonas (Morgan Stanley) | NA | NA | NA | 15.0 | 0.4% | 300.0% | 300.4% |
| 13 | George Magliano (IHS) | NA | NA | NA | 14.5 | 2.9% | 300.0% | 302.9% |
| 14 | Jeff Schuster (LMC Automotive) | NA | NA | NA | 14.5 | 2.9% | 300.0% | 302.9% |
| 15 | Alan Baum (Baum & Associates) | NA | NA | NA | 14.5 | 2.9% | 300.0% | 302.9% |
| 16 | Ryan Brinkman (JPMorgan) | NA | NA | NA | 14.4 | 3.6% | 300.0% | 303.6% |
| Average | 2.8% | 2.3% | 6.3% | 14.50 | ||||
| Actual | 1.5% | -0.2% | 11.5% | 14.94 |
The public may have been surprised by the very strong showing of the market and the not so strong showing of GM and Ford when the September sales came in yesterday. Jessica Caldwell of Edmunds and Jesse Toprak of TrueCar weren’t surprised at all. They called the market with high precision. Separated by only 0.2 points, Caldwell made first, Toprak second, followed far behind by Peter Nesvold of Jefferies. (Read More…)
First September sales reports are coming in, and they are a mixed bag. Chrysler says it had the best September since 2007 with sales up 12 percent. GM’s sales are up only 1.5 percent , while Ford reports zero percent growth.
Volkswagen sold 36,339 vehicles in September, up 34.4 percent. Toyota’s sales are up a whopping 41.5 percent to 171,910 units in September 2012.
Watch this space for more sales coverage throughout the day.
Are you a short seller who is on the hunt for companies that are worse off than European carmakers? Look for parts makers that are also in the contract manufacturing business. OEMs may lose sales, but contract manufacturers lose whole contracts when manufacture is brought in-house by OEMs. Magna is likely to lose the contract with BMW to build the next generation of Mini cars, says Reuters. (Read More…)
Sales won’t be the only thing up when September new car sales are reported today. (Keep an eye on TTAC.) “”Transaction prices in September are the highest in years,” said Jesse Toprak, research chief of TrueCar.com. (Read More…)
For most of the year, the German new car market could defy Europe’s eye-popping g-forces. No more. Germany is now officially going down with the rest of them. With 250,082 units sold in September, German new car sales dropped 10.9 percent as compared to September last year. (Read More…)
From Autoblog via Edmunds to Slashgear, the automotive blogosphere is buzzing about an INSECT from Toyota. INSECT is an acronym for “Information Network Social Electric City Transporter,” and, says Edmunds (along with pretty much everybody else who copied the press release,) the vehicle carrying the creepy name “is a single-seater that features facial-recognition technology and behavior prediction, marking the dawn of the car as mind-reader.” The INSECT officially hatched today, 1 ½ subway hours from where I currently live.
As an eye-witness, I can certify that a gullible media has been had. (Read More…)
Bad European car sales are about to get worse. French September car registrations dropped 18 percent year-on-year, while Spain’s plunged 37 percent, Reuters reports. (Read More…)
If the thought of a four-cylinder BMW gives you the creeps, then this will cause chronic dermatitis: BMW is thinking of putting three-cylinder engines into vehicles sold in the United States. (Read More…)
Renault is playing hardball in France. Message to government and unions: We can make our cars elsewhere. After Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn said last Friday that Renault could disappear from France “in its current form,” his Chief Operating Officer Carlos Tavares said that production in other countries could be cheaper. (Read More…)
September was the month when the torrid growth of Japanese car sales came to an end. Sales of all cars were down 3.4 percent in Japan. The market is down for two reasons, mathematical and governmental. (Read More…)
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