So often we hear analysts and fans excuse a car’s poor initial sales performance with a phrase like, “But it’s early.” Oddly, the very same phrase is legitimately used when discussing a new car’s surprisingly successful first month. In just its second month on sale, in just its first full month on sale, the Scion FR-S did not sell poorly.
Well America may be the overall volume leader for pickup truck sales, the per-capita title belongs to Thailand, and they prefer a different flavor of truck as well.
The small pickup market may be dwindling, but Chrysler may be looking at getting back in to the segment – though their next small or mid-size pickup won’t be a body-on-frame vehicle like the now-cancelled Dakota.
Volkswagen wants to be the world’s biggest, most profitable, most innovative, and most loved automaker by 2018, and everybody at Volkswagen has been sworn-in to do their share. US managers promised that they will deliver a million sales a year to the group. It’s a tall order. To get there, “American consumers will need to buy a lot more new Volkswagens, Audis and Porsches,” Reuters says. Read More >
Volkswagen is on track to have their best year in America since 1973 – and all it took was a revamped product lineup that got largely negative reviews from the automotive press.
Now that the dust has settled, it’s time to take a look at our favorite automotive urination competition, the epic battle between the Chevrolet Volt, Nissan Leaf and the Toyota Prius Plug-In.
Our patent-pending oracle for the Chinese market has spoken and predicts slight June gains for the world’s largest car market. GM China did this by announcing a 10.1 percent gain on 213,495 units sold in June. Read More >
From London’s Telegraph to Fox News, from Autoblog to Autoguide, gullible media predicted impending doom for foreign carmakers in China. Last February, it was announced that the Chinese government will henceforth only buy Chinese cars. This was seen as a blow especially to Audi. China’s Global Times calls an Audi A6 “Chinese officialdom’s vehicle of choice,” and it was predicted that the officialdom will henceforth have to make do with Roewes and Geelys. Why am I reminded of that story?
Audi’s sales in China are up 37.8 percent for the first six months of the year. Read More >
Germany’s new car market recovered slightly in June. Sales were up 2.9 percent to units, Germany’s Kraftfahrtbundesamt reports. Read More >
Domestic sales of regular new cars, trucks and buses increased 40.9 percent in June, while sales of mini vehicles rose 48.4 percent on the year. Overall, Japan’s new motorvehicle market rose 43.6 percent on 505,342 units sold. The data compare with a post-tsunami June 2011. Read More >
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.” Read More >
Bloomberg is reporting that General Motors and Facebook are talking again, in an attempt to get GM to resume advertising on the social network. Meetings between GM CEO Dan Akerson and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg were being reported.
Bloomberg is reporting that Peugeot may expand their job cuts in France, with the potential for 10 percent of their domestic warehouse to be cut.
| JUNE 2012 SALES VOLUME FORECAST | |||||
| Sales Volume | June’12 Forecast | June’11 | May’12 | Change from June 2011* | Change from May 2012 |
| GM | 233,987 | 215,335 | 245,256 | 8.70% | -4.60% |
| Ford | 201,980 | 193,421 | 215,699 | 4.40% | -6.40% |
| Toyota | 184,512 | 110,937 | 202,973 | 66.30% | -9.10% |
| Chrysler | 143,521 | 120,394 | 150,041 | 19.20% | -4.30% |
| Honda | 126,610 | 83,892 | 133,997 | 50.90% | -5.50% |
| Nissan | 88,113 | 71,941 | 91,794 | 22.50% | -4.00% |
| Industry | 1,270,901 | 1,052,772 | 1,334,131 | 20.70% | -4.70% |
| *NOTE: June 2012 had 27 selling days | |||||
With only a few days until the end of the month, Edmunds issued its June sales forecast. Edmunds expects that 1,270,901 new cars will be sold in June, translating into a 20.7 percent increase compared to June 2011, and a 4.7 percent decrease from May 2012. The Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate (SAAR) is projected to come in at 13.9 million light vehicles. Read More >
If the year would have ended on May 31st, Toyota would be the world’s largest automaker by a wide margin, followed by GM, and a distant third, Volkswagen. The year is not over until it’s over, but 5 months are a good indicator for the rest of the year. Let’s have a look. Read More >
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