With GM’s share price currently hovering below $25, well under its $33 IPO price, The General is holding its second annual Global Business Conference in hopes of encouraging investors the world over to buy into its turnaround. A webcast is currently streaming over at the GM Investor Relations website, but the key points are available in slides available in PDF here. The presentation involves nearly every level of GM’s business, so listening in and reading the entire PDF is going to be the best way to make sense of what GM is trying to communicate… but if you just want an overview, check out the gallery below for a few hand-picked slides, illustrating some of the more important points.

Honda, long a fixture in the upper reaches of rolling YTD sales charts, has been well and properly knocked off its pedestal by now, with its best-seller, the Accord, just barely making it into the top ten at number nine. Civic came in at 11th, while CR-V was 14th. And Honda’s not the only long-reigning volume champ that’son its way down: compared to last year, Toyota’s Corolla and Camry have shed about eight percent of their volume, and right below them the Altima and Fusion are both growing at around 17.5%. By the end of this month, Toyota could easily have only one vehicle in the top five (and could even be knocked out altogether), Honda could be completely out of the top ten, and Ford, Chevy and Nissan could be dominating the upper reaches of our YTD chart. Ch-ch-ch-changes…

[UPDATE: Old Codger-friendly version in gallery below]

Few topics attain as much attention as something only a few can afford: Luxury cars, with special emphasis on who sells the most.

While some snootily state that a lot of these cars can’t possibly be listed as luxury comment, Connolly leathernecks battle in the burlwoods.  The war for luxury-leadership is fought on a global scale, where Dr. Z. exhorts his troops to fight back the onslaught of the Bavarian Barbarians. Month after month, skirmishes for market share erupt on U.S. shores as well. Read More >

Today, my phone rang repeatedly, and my email inbox quickly filled with questions. They all said: “Did you see this? Do you know these people?”

I knew the guy in the picture. I used to be married into a family that was in the Washington Green book. I lived in Virginia two driveways from Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello.  I was surrounded by gentleman farmers and politicos. Jeez, the late Ambassador Fritz Nolting drove into my pool on a riding mower with a cocktail in one hand and a cigar in the other. Talk about distracted driving.

The right man in the picture wanted to be Governor of Virginia. He still does. The left man wants to be a tycoon.

The man who leans over that sign somewhere in the godforsaken desert of Inner Mongolia, China, is Terence “Terry” McAuliffe. Yes, the very same Terry McAuliffe who was a Democratic National Committee head and a close Bill Clinton adviser who, according to a United States Senate document organized the famous coffees and sleepovers that saved Bill Clinton from electoral annihilation.

According to one source, “McAuliffe’s soft money strategy was responsible for President Clinton’s 1996 scandal concerning the Lincoln Bedroom sleepovers and the White House coffees, two tactics employed to solicit huge donations from wealthy friends and patrons of the Clintons.”

Putting the Lincoln Bedroom up for sale for $100,000 a night (on average) was only a minor scandal compared to what was called “Chinagate.”

Al Gore, friend and beneficiary of Buddhist monks, praised McAuliffe as ”the greatest fund-raiser in the history of the universe.” Coming from Gore, that’s the best endorsement one can get.

Yes, you are looking at THAT Terry McAuliffe.

Yes, it’s the same and he is back in China, and back in the fundraising business. This time, he promises to bring 300,000 cars to China. Made in America by Americans. Assembled in China. In that new factory which is going up behind the two gentlemen.

Wait, there is more. A lot more. Read More >

GM China and its joint ventures sold 173,398 vehicles in China during the month of July, “as Shanghai GM and GM’s Buick, Chevrolet and Cadillac brands all set sales records for the month,” GM’s press release says. Nonetheless, GM’s China sales in July were down 1.8 percent from the same month last year. Now how did that happen? Why should you care? Why should anybody care? Read More >

Toyota’s Prius defended its title as best selling car in Japan, which it had re-gained from Honda’s Fit in June. Production at Toyota is getting back in gear, and pre-ordered Prius Alpha wagons are finding their way to their owners. Table provided by the Japan Automobile Dealer Association JADA after the jump … Read More >

GM has announced its Q2 earnings [Analyst slides in PDF here], and the firm has recorded a healthy $2.5b profit for the quarter on strong North American performance and an end to losses from the European Opel division. In fact, on an EBIT (earnings before interest and taxes) basis, all of GM’s global divisions were in the black last quarter, although GM Europe and GM South America both recorded modest $100m gains and GMIO (which includes the lucrative Chinese market) recorded a $600m EBIT. The powerhouse continues to be GM North America, which recorded $2.2b in EBIT, continuing North America’s post-bailout importance as the driver of GM’s financial results. Globally, a $600m reduction in EBIT due to costs and “other” was offset by the same amount of gains in volume/mix, while pricing added a billion dollars to overall EBIT. And though fleet sales were up in North America, incentives for the quarter appear to have hit record lows. [Hit the jump for global deliveries and market share/fleet data, via GM’s financial highlights release].

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Tata’s Nano was launched with much fanfare in 2009, as the world’s cheapest car and a symbol of India’s automotive and economic aspirations. But first Tata had problems with its factory, which was to be built on land [allegedly] stolen from local farmers. Then, early last year, the cars started catching fire and refused to stop. Then finance was the issue, and when Tata revamped its finance, advertising and retail presence, it looked like things were beginning to improve. It turns out the bump was short-lived. After hitting 5k monthly sales last December, volume has fallen again dropping to 3,260 units in July (1/8th the volume of its main rival the Maruti Suzuki Alto) according to indiancarsbikes.in, which reckons

Startlingly, the most fuel efficient petrol car in the country, which is the most inexpensive too isn’t finding takers in a market troubled by high petrol prices and rising loan interest rates, that is clearly favoring cheaper and more fuel efficient cars… the market isn’t biting and the Nano sales have begun the downward spiral, this time continually.

So, what’s Tata going to fix to get its attempt at “India’s Model T” back off the ground. How about “everything”?

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Despite solid gains at most brands, losses at tsunami-afflicted Honda and Toyota were sever enough to reduced the July bottom line of U.S. auto sales to a tepid 1 percent gain. The seasonally adjusted annual sales rate (SAAR) for July stands at 12.24 million units. The pent-up demand is still in hiding, but automaker have not given up the hope for its return:

“There are people who put off vehicle purchases because of uncertainty about fuel prices, vehicle availability and the economy,” said Don Johnson, head of U.S. sales for GM, told Automotive News [sub].  “As these conditions improve in the latter half of this year, many of these buyers will return to the market.”

Others take a more cautious stance. Read More >

With full sales numbers reported for July, TTAC is proud to announce its first-ever auto analyst grades [analyst estimates via Bloomberg]. For now we’re simply grading SAAR projections, but we’ve included OEM projections where applicable, for your own comparison. For July, the top-rated analyst was Edmunds.com’s Jessica Caldwell, whose SAAR prediction was an uncanny .5% off the actual number. Congratulations to Jessica and the Edmunds team, as well as our other A-rated analysts, Rod Lache of Deutsche Bank and Peter Nesvold of Jefferies (who squeaked in with an A-). Hit the jump to see how we calculated our grades.

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New car sales in Japan, excluding minivehicles, were down 27.6 percent on the year to 241,472 in July, while Japan slowly recovers from the effect of the March 11 tsunami, but continues to suffer from a contracting market. Data released today by the Japan Automobile Dealers Association shows that this is the 11^th month straight down. Gory details after the jump … Read More >

With the luxury market defying sluggish economic conditions, Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche doesn’t want the upstarts at BMW and Audi to slip past it… which they are. Six months through 2011, the Mercedes brand found itself in third place among the German global luxury brands, at 610,531 units. A surging BMW captured 689,861 sales in the half, while Audi took second with 652,970. This, for Zetsche, is an unthinkable state of affairs.  In a letter to his employees, excerpted by Automotive News Europe [sub], Zetsche makes it clear that leadership in the luxury space is a Daimler birthright.

Some of our competitors are now growing faster and more profitably than we are. Granted, those are just snapshots in time and should not be overestimated. After all, many of our best new products are yet to come… In the long run we can’t be content to be in a “solid second” or even “third” place: We are Daimler – we should be far ahead of the pack! And if that requires something that we don’t currently have, then we’ll identify and develop it.

Enjoy your summer and refill your tanks. Because in the second half of this year we’re going to continue to play some hard offense!

New car sales were up 9.9 percent in July in Germany, says the German Kraftfahrtbundesamt. As the picture above shows, sales are slightly above 2010 (red line) and below the Abwrackprämien-addled 2009. Normalcy ensues in Deutschland, which is mostly on vacation anyway. The summer months are not for car buying, they are for car driving. Read More >

Sales volume grew slowly in July, as economic uncertainty and supply interruptions continued to foil a full turnaround in US sales volume. On the other hand, TrueCar reports that the consumers that did buy cars spent record amounts on average, as transaction prices soared to their highest levels in history and incentives fell. According to our developing table, the Detroit automakers are coming through July ahead of their year-ago numbers, but the Japanese automakers (who are still releasing their numbers) are expected to take a bit of punishment as they struggle to recover from the industry-crippling tsunami. Hit the jump for a full table of July sales results (developing).

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Every month, Bloomberg publishes monthly auto sales estimates from the leading analysts… and as this month’s survey proves, they’re all over the place. With SAAR estimates running from 11.4m units to 12.1m units, and with Ford’s growth estimates ranging from 4.2% to 11%, it’s clear that we will have some winners and losers from the bunch. In short, the analyst community needs a little truth injection… which, of course, is where TTAC comes in. This month, and every month in the future, TTAC will be grading analysts on the accuracy of their forecasts. By comparing analyses from month to month, we hope to build a case for which analysts are the most consistently accurate. Industry analysts beware: TTAC has put you on notice!