Yes, our recent acquisition of complete 2009 fleet sales data came a little late in the game, but we’re still finding all kinds of fun facts buried in it. For fans of limited government, perhaps the most interesting revelation is that the government fleet sales data shows that American governments (it’s unclear whether these are state, local or federal agencies) bought some sweet cars last year. Some sweet, expensive cars. Let’s take a look at some of the most surprising government fleet purchases of 2009, accompanied by our guesses for how each purchase was used.

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Fleet sales data can be some of the toughest numbers to find, but thanks to a post from commenter GarbageMotorsCo, we’ve got some pretty comprehensive numbers for last year’s fleet performance [courtesy: automotive-fleet.com, PDF list here]. Overall fleet levels have been higher this year, but by identifying the most popular vehicles with fleet buyers (in terms of fleet sales as a percentage of overall sales), we’ll at least have some hints about this year’s performance. To help give a more accurate picture, we’ve left out obvious commercial vehicles (mainly large vans, and the queen of all fleet queens, the Ford Crown Vic (95% fleet)), as well as discontinued models like Chevy Uplander (57%) and Pontiac G6 (44.7%). We also left out hybrid or CNG versions of nameplates. Two vehicles with limited sales last year (GMC Terrain and Kia Forte) are on the list, even though they may not be on a similar list for 2010 (the Honda Insight is not on the list, despite selling all 193 of its 2009 sales to fleets). Hit the jump for our full list.

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Chrysler lost $84m last quarter on an operating profit of $239m, showing slow but consistent progress from last quarter’s $172m loss [Press release here, slides here, both in PDF]. Chrysler has lost $453m since the beginning of this year. Overall deliveries and sales were down slightly compared to Q2 2010, but thanks to a strong launch for the profit-generating Grand Cherokee, revenues were up just over 5 percent to $11b. As the slide above proves, “Mix and Net Price” accounts for one of the biggest contributions to operating profit, and that’s largely thanks to the new Grand Cherokee which (at 12,721 units last month)  is the second-best selling vehicle in Chrysler’s lineup after Ram pickups. That’s a good sign for the future of a company that needed a hero, but there are some troubling signs under the surface.

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Audi’s sales in Japan went down 20 percent in October. The macro-oriented crowd points at the fact that the domestic Japanese market was down 26.7 percent in October, and that Audi or its dealers have no reason to complain. And what are Japanese Audi dealers doing? They are complaining. They say that they have enough buyers, but not enough cars to meet the demand.

They all go to China. Read More >

A few days ago, I wrote about car sales all over Europe falling faster than a…..erm……really fast thing. I also wrote how this didn’t bode well for the UK car market. Well, the figures are in and, unfortunately, I wasn’t wrong – this time. It’s pretty bad. New car registrations fell 22.2 percent in October. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) also said that further declines are likely for the rest for the year. Oh goody(!) Looks like I’m going to have to find more words for “dropped”.

Shall we take a look at the carnage? It’s not for the faint of heart. Read More >

Trucks are staying strong, the mid-sized sedan market is getting more competitive, large sedans are enjoying a comeback, and compact crossovers are growing like gangbusters. But what else do you see in these numbers?

Did we say „duh“ when GM China announced plans to make more than 2m cars in China this year, the first foreign joint venturer to do so? When they said that, they already had 1,976,913 units in the can, and nobody did doubt that GM would find the 23,087 buyers to reach the 2m. Well, a few days later, they found them. Read More >

Australia is pretty much a stronghold for Toyota. Looking at the figures, it seems that Aussies like well-made, cheap reliable cars. And to be honest, who doesn’t like those kinds of cars? But what happens when someone else comes to your market, and does well what you do well? Well, you get worried. Read More >

When gas peaked in 2008, and carmageddon ensued thereafter, many predicted the end of the world, and if that won’t come to pass, the total extinction of the pickup and SUV genre. Along with that, the demise of the U.S. auto industry was prognosticated, because it supposedly was more dependent on trucks than Robert Downey Jr, on uppers and downers. Conventional wisdom had it that we’d be driving bicycles, midgetmobiles, solar powered EVs, or use public transportation. Pickups? Only at Match.com.

Well guess what, as with all the crises before, it didn’t happen. Actually, the dinosaurs reign supreme. Read More >

With GM’s IPO officially launched, we thought we’d send ChartOTD diving inside GM’s sales performance this year. The graph above shows GM’s top nameplates by volume for the January-October 2010 period, compared to the same ten months of 2009. All of GM’s top-ten volume vehicles are doing better than they did last year, but these are not in fact GM’s fastest-growing nameplates. For that graph and more, hit the jump…

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Who spent the most money on volume-building but profit-sapping incentives over the last month? Well, it depends on who you ask. Edmunds.com’s True Cost Of Incentives index puts GM at the top of the heap, with an October estimate of $3,437 spent per sale. Truecar.com has a similar number for GM, at $3,472, but says that Chrysler was the king of incentivized sales last month, spending $3,629 per car sold. Interestingly, both firms put Ford at just over $3,000 spent per vehicle, but Edmunds says Chrysler is actually under that mark, spending $2,927 per vehicle. In another discrepancy between the two reports, TrueCar puts Nissan at $3,050 while Edmunds puts the Nissan number at $2,321. In any case, Toyota may just be the Japanese automaker that breaks Detroit’s dominance of average incentive numbers. Toyota’s Bob Carter has revealed that big incentives are coming as Toyota struggles to get its volume up by year’s end, telling Automotive News [sub]

You will see an enhancement to marketing and incentives but [they] will remain consistent in the APR and lease arenas,” he said. “They will be the best deals of the year — leasing and APR deals are moving the market.

Our patent-pending China new car market prediction system (take GM China, deduct a few percent) hasn’t been doing so well lately, due to the poor showing of Wuling, which confused the mix. Let’s give it another cautious go.  GM China increased its October sales by 19.6 percent on strong sales of Buick, Chevrolet and Cadillac cars. That according to Bloomberg, which has it straight from GM Shanghai. Read More >

Toyota drops in China, Canada, The United States, Japan and (almost certainly) Europe, too. You’d think good news would be scarce. And you’re right, it is! But wait, there’s one! Read More >

GM October sales beat analyst forecasts, with total sales up 4%, and YTD sales up 6%. As GM would have you prefer, it would rather you focus on the four core brands, which are up 13%, and 22% YTD. As the General’s dead brands fall away (Pontiac as of this past Sunday), comparisons to their former volumes do become increasingly irrelevant. A key component of GM’s October success? A higher number of new 2011 models to sell, which also brought down incentives. Details: Read More >

Chryslers sales in October of last year amounted to a miserable 65,803 units, so the firm’s 37 percent year-over-year sales increase in October of 2010 is not really all that surprising. And despite the uptick, Chrysler is still coming up short of its monthly “survival volume” sales goal of 95k units, coming in at just 90,137. A 79 percent increase in 300 sales (5,211 units) was the sole bright spot for the Chrysler brand last month (although T&C kept volume up with an 18 percent gain). Jeep’s new Grand Cherokee is heating up nicely, with volume hitting 12,721 units, and leading Jeep to a 111 percent increase. And the new JGC brought the whole Jeep brand up with it, as only Commander failed to record a sales increase (all other Jeep nameplates were up at least 46%). Dodge saw a slight three percent increase on the month, as low-volume nameplates gained large percentages for small volume increases, and bigger nameplates like Caravan (-8%) saw small percentage decreases. The Ram brand was up 37 percent, with volume at 18,090 units. But really, the big news here (other than the usual not-quite-enough-volume story) is the JGC and its apparent beneficial effects on the Jeep brand. Full press release here.