The current shortage of used cars, along with record prices for second-hand vehicles, is likely to come to an end, according to ALG.
Category: Sales

Are your children about to start college? Maybe it’s their senior year in high school? Looking for a cheap vehicle and don’t mind if it’s been recalled to death by its automaker? Then a vehicle caught up in the General Motors recall parade might be the one, as prices have fallen hard as of late.

Business is booming on the lot, with the industry on pace to move some 16 million vehicles out onto the highway by the end of 2014. However, some Wall Street insiders are growing bearish with this bull market, blaming easy credit for the surge in demand.
In an interview with Edmunds, Hyundai CEO Dave Zuchowski spoke of a new vehicle that
“would be a vehicle that would be really designed for Gen Y, for new first-time younger buyers…Think of maybe something that looks like a Juke or something that has edgy, dynamic styling.”
Doesn’t Hyundai already have something like that?
These are not normal times for America’s pickup truck market.
The best-selling pickup truck line, Ford’s F-Series, is now entering a transition phase many months after potential customers first witnessed its aluminum-intensive replacement.
Toyota, long a minor player in the full-size category, refreshed its Tundra and continues to achieve notable sales increases, though with gradually less impressive growth figures.
GM’s twins last combined to outsell the Ford F-Series in 2009. They should still seem fresh, but to many the redesign wasn’t, in visual terms, sufficiently differentiated from the GMT900 models. Through the first seven months of 2014, the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra trail the Ford F-Series by 35,610 units. Read More >
How do you help move the Cadillac ELR? Simple: drop the price down to one that the market will bear.
In the prelude to the introduction of Toyota’s revamped 2015 Camry, the current Camry has been selling at a prodigious rate. July 2014 marked the fifth consecutive month that the Camry has been America’s best-selling car; the tenth such month in the last year.
General Motors’ U.S. market share held steady at 17.8% in July compared with the same period one year ago. In comparison with June of this year, however, GM’s portion slid from 18.8%. GM’s volume fell 4.2% from 267,461 in June to 256,160 units in July even as overall new vehicle sales grew 1%.
Moving ahead from June then, which automakers produced the gains at GM’s expense, at Ford’s and Chrysler/FCA’s expense, too? Toyota and Nissan, mostly. With a nearly one percentage point increase, Toyota produced a very high-volume July thanks to record RAV4 sales, predictably lofty Camry volume, and Lexus’ rise to the top of the premium pile.
Nissan owned 7.7% of the U.S. market in June; 8.3% in July. The Versa, Sentra, and Leaf combined for 36,228 July sales, up from 22,310 in July 2013 and 31,057 in June of this year.
Meanwhile, compared with the prior month, American Honda’s share of the U.S. market grew from 9.1% to 9.5% on the strength of the Accord and CR-V, America’s second-best-selling car and top-selling utility vehicle, respectively.
Automakers reported the sales of 1.4 million new vehicles in July 2014, representing a 9% increase compared with July of last year. Among volume brands, the biggest percentage gains were achieved by Jeep, Subaru, GMC, and Ram. Jaguar, Scion, Acura, Volvo, and Volkswagen all reported losses of at least 14%. Cadillac, Honda, and Mini also posted decreased July volume relative to the same period in 2013.
With pricing for the Audi Q3 and Mercedes-Benz GLA announced, the fight for the luxury compact crossover sales crown is officially on. It’s going to be the most important battle of the year for the luxury car market.
Toyota’s upcoming fuel-cell vehicle will reportedly get the name “Mirai” when it launches in 2015, along with a hefty rebate program in its home market of Japan.

Though companies such as Lyft, Car2Go and Uber aim to help the young and the carless get around town without the need for owning a car — Uber wanting to go as far as to replace car ownership, period — the millennials eventually decide to go all in on individual car ownership.
The Lexus GX seems to truck along in the American marketplace with little fanfare. Aside from a brief rollover scare, the GX’s most notable achievement appears to be as the ride of choice for family members of Lexus dealer principals and Central Asian warlords. But Ward’s Auto reports that a bit of magic by Lexus product planners has helped double sales in just over a year.
In April, when they released their FY2013 annual results, MMC (Mitsubishi Motors Corp) reported record profits; see Reuters and Automotive News for stories.
Don’t get too excited.
Buried in a feel good story about auto loans comes the news that subprime auto loans are at levels that we haven’t seen in nearly a decade.












Recent Comments