Following in the footsteps of Spanish bank Santander, GM Financial announced that it would enter the prime lending market in 2014.
Find News by Subject:
Category: Sales
Weaker than expected growth in the United States has led Carlos Ghosn to issue an even more ambitious goal; double Nissan’s sales by 2017.
Despite sales of the Fiat 500 picking up, Fiat dealers are getting antsy for new product, with some showrooms struggling to turn a profit based on sales of the subcompact alone.
Tesla Motors, Inc. released its first quarter financial results yesterday, which featured a number of milestones for the auto maker. Among them, Tesla’s revenue rose 83% from the last quarter to $562 million, a record high for the company.
Yet another bit of bleak data from Europe relating to new car sales. A popular school of thought holds that young people’s aversion to cars is largely rooted in economic factors. When everyone under 30 is broke, living at home and wallowing in student debt, the last thing on their mind is a car. But the hope is that once things turn around, it will be time for Generation Y to get motoring again. At least in North America. Over in Europe (or certain parts of it, at least) things are much more bleak.
While we wait on the latest round of registration data from Europe (April 2013), a look at January-March 2013 data paints a bleak picture for Alfa Romeo.
China’s CAAM released April sales today, and as indicated by GM’s good April showing, results are good. Sales of all automobiles are up 13.38 percent to 1,841,700 in April. Treat other reports with caution, many are the usual confusion of passenger vehicles and all cars. In China, there is a huge difference. Read More >
Ferrari will be scaling back production in 2013, in an effort to help retain some of the brand’s exclusivity.
Subaru is set to expand capacity at its Indiana plant by 100,000 units, adding the Impreza alongside the Legacy, Outback and Tribeca to help fill demand for its vehicles in the United States. Read More >
As Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi rush to prepare new entry-level product to attract a younger crowd, Jaguar Land Rover is proudly calling “bollocks” on their efforts to attract younger buyers. Although much of the growth in the “near-luxury” segment is expected to come from vehicles with a transaction price in the $30,000-$40,000 range, JLR’s sole offering in that segment is the low-volume LR2. It’s the $50,000 Evoque that’s driving sales for the brand. This interview from Automotive News with JLR’s North American CEO, Andy Goss, explains why: Read More >
As enthusiastic as I am about the actual product (when everyone was ready to crap all over Tesla based on some bad information, TTAC was one of the few publications to go to bat for the upstart auto maker), Elon Musk’s series of announcements, frequently couched in hyperbolic descriptions of their significance, are beginning to grate on me. Every week, Musk seems to descend from Mount Sinai bearing yet another set of tablets that promise to “disrupt” (to use a favorite term of Silicon Valley) the automotive landscape forever, yet end up being little more than a not-quite-a-lease program or some announcement about after-sales care.
The UK new car market was up a strong 14.8 percent in April.
UK’s SMMT says that April registrations stood at 163,357 units, and that registrations in the first four months of 2013 grew 8.9 percent to 768,555 units. However, even the SMMT warns not to read too much into this. Read More >
Canadians registered just under 172,000 new vehicles in April, more than in any April since 2008. Through the first quarter of 2013, auto sales in Canada were down 1.9%. Imports, by which we mean non-Detroit brands, were suffering the most. Including Toyota, Hyundai, Honda, and Kia, nine Asian brands had posted year-over-year declines at the end of March.
One of the bigger stories of 2013 has so far managed to escape the news cycle. I’m not exactly sure why Nissan’s announcement of significant reductions on the MSRP of new cars hasn’t gotten more coverage, but I’m also not 100 percent sure of Nissan’s motives either.
Germany’s new car sales were up 3.8 percent in April, says Germany’s Kraftfahrtbundesamt. This is the first time in nearly a year that German car sales were in plus territory. In France, an April loss of 5.2 percent already was feted as the turn-around. Has the European bottom been reached? I don’t think so. Read More >
Recent Comments