In the beginning of the new millennium, U.S. new auto sales topped 17 million a few times as Americans used the assumed equity in their houses to stuff their three car garages with more cars than there were driver’s licenses in the nation.  In 2000, a total of 17,349,700 new cars changed hands. A year later, 17,121,900 units.  It deteriorated from there. In 2007, 16,089,300 cars were sold.  And we know what happened thereafter.

If we buy and sell 11.5 million new cars this year, it will be called a recovery.  For 2011, J.D.Power sees maybe 12.8 million, if it all works out. They had seen a bit more before, but grew cautious lately.  Now, a prophet appeared that predicts the miracle everybody prays for, a return to former (albeit fleeting) glory: Read More >

Tyler Durden over at ZeroHedge reports on the untold story of GM’s increasing delivery numbers: they’re sitting on lots.

Hidden deep in today’s disappointing GM November sales release is a number that all GM longs may want to quickly forget, or else pay serious attention to. But first, earlier today, GM reported slightly disappointing sales numbers: the newly IPOed company sold 168,739 cars in November, a 11.4% increase to November 2009, which came in below expectations of a 13% rise. That’s mostly noise. What isn’t, however, is the linear rise in GM’s auto inventory safely stashed away at dealers, i.e., unsold….

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Bloomberg reports that the world’s cheapest car, the Tata Nano has seen its sales drop from the point where it had to hold a lottery to choose buyers for its first 100k units to last month’s all-time low of only 509 units sold. Tata has raised the price twice this year, bumping the MSRP by 4 percent in July and then adding another $200 to the price in October. This, in addition to the Nano’s fire-related issues and the inability of Indian consumers to secure financing for the microcar is being blamed for the sales drop. Says Mahantesh Sabarad, an analyst with Fortune Equity Brokers (India) Ltd:

The product has had a difficult time in terms of its perception ever since those fire incidents came in. A lot of people bought the car in the initial sales period for its novelty factor and didn’t go for loans

Tata’s response: hire more sales staff and work with banks to secure loans for Nano customers. After all, the Indian automaker has 250k annual production capacity assigned to the Nano, so sales had better start picking up soon.

Did you hear that sound? That was a sigh of relief coming from Germany. Germans are buying cars again. In November, they bought more cars than in October 2010, and even more than in November 2008. What’s more, November 2010 is only 6.2 percent below the Abwrackprämien-exaggerated  November of the prior year. The usually very conservative Kraftfahrtbundesamt that released the official registration data even dares to prognosticate that “year and sales are expected to be 2.9 million cars.” Translation: Read More >

Good news, bad news times at Toyota. First, the bad news. Read More >

GM China, our recently no longer so reliable oracle for the Chinese market, raised its November sales by 11 percent, compared to an absolutely batty November 2009. 11 percent are not the same growth as the 109.5 percent GM China had recorded in last year’s November, but how much battier do you expect them to get? The more meaningful number is that for the first 11 months of 2010:  From January through November, GM’s China sales jumped 33 percent to a mind-blowing 2.17 million units. GM China will most likely close out the year in the 2.35 to 2.4m area – this is higher than the total sales of some of Europe’s larger countries, and definitely a whole lot more than GM sells back  home. Better get used to it. Read More >

This, according to TrueCar.com, is what automakers spent on incentives last month. Though Chrysler and GM have cut compared to November of last year, their incentive spending is on the march compared to last month, and they still vie for industry “leadership” in these profit-sapping spiffs. But that’s just TrueCar’s perspective…

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Now that Bob Lutz is lounging on the beach and catching early-bird specials (between Lotus board meetings and GM dog-and-pony shows), it’s good to know that there are still a few good men left to sprinkle The Detroit News with a few double-take-inspiring quotes. Jim Hall of 2953 Analytics is a reliable source of controversial gems, and thanks to one particularly context-free quotation, he’s provided the perfect place to kick off an age-old debate: Vette or Viper. But Hall wasn’t talking about either car’s performance, instead forwarding the thesis that:

Automotive News [sub] reports that October’s Seasonally Adjusted Annual Selling Rate (SAAR) hit 12.2m last month, making November the market’s second month back over the 12m mark since last year’s Cash For Clunkers-fueled buying spree. Analysts are calling the 12m mark an “important psychological level,” although sales appear to be essentially flat compared to last month. Check back for an updated chart as more automakers report their sales.

The Japanese are usually first to report last month’s sales numbers. This time: Very bad. New car sales in Japan fell 30.7 percent in November. After Japan’s generous subsidies were withdrawn, the market is down for the third straight month, and there is no end in sight. Read More >

Yesterday’s discussion of Porsche’s identity as a pure sports car company (compared to an SUV-peddling luxury brand) was predictably emotional, so here’s the cold, hard truth. The Cayenne has been Porsche’s best seller in the US since its introduction, excepting a 911-happy 2006. Oh, and this year it’s on track to come in second… to the Panamera. Meanwhile, Porsche’s Boxster/Cayman duo has been dropping off since before the most recent recession even began, and 911 sales are approaching a 15-year low. Now that we know the facts, is there any debate about what would happen to Porsche if it stuck to its sports car knitting?

This morning General Motors held a press conference at its Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant to announce that the Chevy Volt was in production, on sale, and will start shipping today. The Volt goes on sale in seven initial markets, with a national rollout in early 2011. Export sales will begin late next year.

While there were a number of journalists in attendance (including, significantly, a noticeable number from Japanese news outlets) and though there was some news to be made, this particular dog and pony show was more of a pep rally than anything else. Hundreds of assembly line workers from the plant attended the event and the speakers frequently praised them. When GM North America president Mark Reuss walked in before the event started, he made a point of congratulating each member of the GM management team that was in attendance. Ron King, UAW president, was busy so Gary Bernath stood in. He went out of his way to praise the locals at all the GM facilities involved in the Volt project, and he thanked Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm and other elected officials. Read More >

Ford currently offers four vehicles with its EcoBoost-branded direct-injection, turbocharged V6: Taurus and Flex, and the Lincoln MKS and MKT. But what percentage of buyers do you think spends the $750 to $1,700 to upgrade to Ford’s engine technology of the future? Write down your guesses and hit the jump to see how close you were…

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The year is slowly coming to an end. Only one month to go. China’s industry association CAAM is no doubt looking at early reports of the November sales (official numbers will be released in a week or so.) That look emboldened the CAAM to come to a semi-official prediction: “China is expected to record auto sales volume of more than 17 million units this year” said the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM), according to Gasgoo. Read More >

People have accused me of irrational exuberance (or worse) when I mentioned that the Chinese auto market could be 17 million or thereabouts this year. Impending bubbles were predicted. Popping bubbles were (erroneously) reported. Gordon Chang, guest of Glenn Beck whenever Beck needs an Asian that says something nasty about China, even offered the theory that the Chinese government  secretly buys most of the cars and hides them somewhere. (For 17 million, the Gobi desert would come in handy, but then there’s Google maps.)  I stuck by my prediction of 17m or thereabouts.

Well, it turns out I was wrong after all. Read More >