Ford’s sales momentum continues unabated, as the Blue Oval has announced that its January sales were up 25 percent over January 2009 [full release in PDF format here]. Sales were led by a a strong performance from Ford-branded cars, which were up 54 percent as a category, with individual nameplates logging gains ranging from 33 percent (Focus, 10,389 units) to 121 percent (Taurus, 3,768 units). Ford Crossovers and SUVs were up 16.7 and 12.9 percent respectively, with most of the volume gains coming from CUVs like the Escape (+28.6%, 10,753) and Edge (+25.5%, 6,243 units). Ford truck sales were up 14.5 percent, with heavy commercial vehicles falling and the Ranger recording a strong 47.3 percent gain to 4,143 units.

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Germany is suffering from Abwrackprämien-withdrawal. Message to dealers: Not this month, we have a headache. January sales are down 4.3 percent compared to January 2009. Only 181,189 new cars found their way on Deutschland’s roads. 4.3 percent may not sound earth shattering. But we are comparing with an exceptionally crummy January 2009, when sales were so awful that Berlin quickly launched their German cash-for-clunkers Abwrackprämien program. This time around, Germans bought even less. It’s been the most miserable January in some 20 years. Read More >

Japanese car sales are coming back with a vengeance, reports The Nikkei [sub] Sales of new vehicles (exluding minivehicles, or Kei cars) rose 36.8 percent to 238,362 units. That according to data by the Japan Automobile Dealers Association. January marks the sixth consecutive month of growth, and the increase is the largest ever recorded for the month of January. Minivehicles edged up 0.7 percent to 128,297 units in January, recording their first rise in 15 months, as per data by the Japan Mini Vehicles Association. Read More >

Hyundai’s fourth quarter profit quadrupled over last year’s fourth quarter results, reports Bloomberg, as net income hit $822m, up from $210m in the same period last year. Operating profit rose 44 percent to $722m. This comes despite an increase in the value of the Won, which has reduced profit on Hyundais exports, which make up half the firm’s revenue. And unlike other automotive firms reaping surprise year-end profits (like Ford), Hyundai’s gains come from increased sales rather than cost-cutting. Hyundai’s overall sales rose 14 percent to 3.2 million units last year, driven by growth in the US and Indian markets. Hyundai finished 2009 with just over five percent of the world market. Hyundai expects sales to rise 11 percent in 2010, and the firm is looking to take advantage of Toyota’s weakness by offering conquest incentives like those now offered by GM, Ford and Chrysler.

It’s obvious that Suzuki isn’t surviving the global downturn on US sales. Stateside, the Japanese automaker’s sales fell over 50 percent last year, with only 38,695 vehicles sold. Globally, Suzuki sold 908,302 units, meaning fewer than one out of 20 Suzukis sold worldwide were in the US market. That’s no big surprise as Suzuki has long focused on developing markets for growth. What is surprising is that Suzuki’s Indian joint venture Maruti actually outproduced its parent company, racking up 966,399, of which about 130k were exported. Wilder still, Maruti sold 967,581 units last year, more than it could produce and more than Suzuki produced worldwide. Suzuki owns 54 percent of Maruti, the best-selling brand in the Indian market by a healthy margin. The Indian market grew by 19 percent last year, while the Japanese market fell by ten percent.

Here is a round-up of the Toyota news that is flowing furiously out of all news outlets. Everybody, from the Wall Street Journal to Al Jazeera weighs in on the issue. Grab a cup of coffee. Or something stronger.

More recalls: Toyota announced late Wednesday that it must recall another 1.1 million vehicles “to address the risk that floor mats could trap accelerator pedals and cause bursts of sudden acceleration,” says Reuters. According to Reuters, “Toyota now has recalled nearly 6m vehicles for problems with the accelerators used across its lineup.” This is not counting the 2m vehicles in Europe that will be recalled.

EU recall official: Toyota Motor said today that it definitely will be expanding the recall to Europe, says AFP via Google. “Toyota will implement a recall in Europe,” said company spokesman Paul Nolasco. “We are still not sure about the models and the number of vehicles.” Initial estimates, published by The Nikkei [sub], spoke about another 2m cars in Europe. Plants will not be closed in Europe, because different parts already are being used in new production.

Recall spreads to China: China’s quality watchdog agency said “bu hao” to Toyota and ordered  the  recall of “at least 75,000 vehicles  in China,” says London’s Times. Read More >

Japan surely can use some good news, what with pedal-gate and Standard & Poors warning that they might downgrade Japan’s sovereign debt rating from stellar to less than stellar. CSM to the rescue: They think, vehicle sales in Japan could grow by 4 percent in 2010. Honto? What’s driving sales go motto-motto? Government stimulus money. Read More >

Mamma mia! Fiat’s order book looks “worse than in the beginning of 2009, when we were deep in the economic crisis,” said Sergio Marchionne. Cosa facciamo? Eccola: Fiat will close all of their Italian plants for two weeks, from February 22 to March 5, reports Das Autohaus.

That doesn’t bode well for the company. Read More >

CSM Worldwide thinks that car sales in Europe are in for a nasty drop as governments in the West discontinue scrappage schemes that propped up demand in 2009. That would the third consecutive drop.

CSM is forecasting that 2010 sales in Europe will fall 7.9 percent to 16.7 million units. According to CSM, this “follows declines of 13.4 percent in 2009 and 5.1 percent in 2008, when total European sales were 21.0 million units.”

Careful with those numbers. Read More >

Toyota’s decision to suspend production and sales in North America of eight recalled models is sending shock waves through seismically sensitized Japan . Tokyo’s Nikkei [sub], usually not prone to sensationalist reporting and strong language, says today that “the fiasco is likely to have unfortunate consequences for the automaker’s image and earnings.”

According to the Nikkei, the eight models recalled for sticking accelerator pedals accounted for about 60 percent  of Toyota’s North American sales last year.  The production freeze will affect five North American plants. “A prolonged halt would inevitably influence Toyota’s bottom line,” warned an analyst at one major securities firm.

According to the Nikkei, “it is rare for an automaker to suspend production and sales because of a recall.” A Toyota spokesperson pointed out that this is not the first time for the company to make such a move. However, they acknowledged that the scale this time is unusually large. Read More >

The Japanese press is making a big to-do out of the combined 2009 sales of Volkswagen and Suzuki. Or rather out of the fact that the two together sold more than Toyota. „Suzuki-VW Beats Toyota In Global Sales In ’09” headlines The Nikkei, as if the two would be one company.

That the two of them could easily crush Toyota is no news to TTAC readers. When we announced the VW-Suzuki nuptials on Dec 9, 2009, we said: “Suzuki has an output of 2.36 million units a year; added to VW’s sales, Toyota would be toast.”

The Nikkei did the adding, and writes:  Read More >

Optimism is a rare commodity in the auto industry these days, and nearly all of it comes from the so-called BRIC nations of Brazil, India, China and (to a lesser extent) Russia. India in particular is being targeted as one of the few growth opportunities for the industry’s global players. Nissan/Renault, Volkswagen, Honda, Ford and GM have all recently announced major initiatives to target growth in India’s entry-level market, and GM even gave up control of its Chinese operations in order to beef up its Indian presence. But, as the Hindu Business Line reports, India could be staring down the kind of overcapacity that is causing so many headaches for automakers in mature markets.

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As we reported earlier, TTAC is a subscriber to Morgan and Co.’s industry sales statistics. This means that current and detailed stats going back to 1993 are available to us, and we’re going to figure out the best way to share them with you. Like most things in life, there are pros and cons. The detail and amount of information is staggering, but it’s very affordable to us. It will save us time we don’t have to pore over numbers from manufacturers and compile them. But we also have to accept the segment categories as Morgan compiles them, and as you’ll see, there are times that doesn’t always jibe with how we intuitively categorize cars. Frankly, that’s getting harder to do all the time anyway: is the Flex a mini van or a crossover? Morgan sends us Excel spreadsheets and some basic charts. They’re not exactly exciting to look at, which is why we often succumb to spicing up these sales snapshots with a bit of eye candy. We’re going to be playing with different ways to present this stuff, so please let us know what works better, or not. I know you will anyway. Read More >

Update: It’s obvious I’m confusing as many or more folks with this post as I am enlightening some. As an addicted Economist reader, I enjoy unraveling the myths and stereotypes that Europeans pay $30k for a basic Ford Focus or pay $9 for a gallon of gas. We do, if we go there with our dollars. They don’t. The information below is intended as a set of tools to better understand the issues, but will not explain them all perfectly. I’ve run out of time to respond to comments, so I hope this helps. Or pick up an Economist :)

European new car prices can be as confusing to us Yanks as ordering from a menu in Latvia. We’re always hearing about tiny $29k econoboxes and the like. List prices are typically converted to US dollars, and the results can be very misleading. MSRPs are assumed to be more solid than ours. And the 19% VAT (value added tax) is not factored in. The result often is an assumption that European car manufacturers are getting ginormous prices for their little hatchbacks. Lets pull back the curtain of confusion and seek some truth. Like the Audi A3 shown above: if you factor in purchasing power parity, remove the (included) 19% tax, and factor in the 29% discount being offered, the equivalent US price is: $12,353. Allow me to explain: Read More >