Well, obviously. But it should be remembered– as CNNMoney does– that the new Chevrolet Malibu was supposed to mark the dawn of a new era. The General promised that it would end its reliance on residual-killing stack ’em high and sell ’em cheap fleet sales. So much for that then. “When launching the car last fall, GM said its goal for the Malibu was to sell no more than 20% to rental car companies, down from 40% for the old models. But the auto maker said Wednesday that of 19,725 Malibus sold last month, 10, 462, or 53%, were sold to fleets. Fleet sales include those to rental car companies, along with government and corporate fleets.” Other candidates: Pontiac G5 (+27 percent), Vibe (+91 percent), HHR (14.4 percent) and Vue (+9.7). And so on. In fact, except for (but maybe not) the Lambda-based crossovers, there isn’t a single GM model that gained ground in September that doesn’t seem like a fleet queen. “During the month, sales of vehicles to fleet customers jumped 17% compared to September 2007, while retail sales dropped 26%.”

Chrysler’s monthly sales spreadsheet is as glum as ever, with the soon to be wholly American-owned again carmaker‘s September sales off 33 percent. Fleet-charged minivan sales rose six percent, 2,376 Challengers peeled off the lots, and almost 5K customers took a Journey. Viper sales are up 258 percent to, uh, 86. And then there’s a whole lot of familiar bad news that could me mistaken for a copy and paste from the previous few months. The small, mid-sized, and large cars aren’t what you’d call hot sellers. Outgoing Ram sales are down 31 percent and Chrysler now offers $6k to take the last of the 2008’s. Durango sales were back down, this month just 616 without mention of hybrid sales. Total year-to-date sales are down 25 percent. The only other thing poor CJD dealers have to look forwards this fall: budget Challengers and freshened interiors on the Jeep Compass and Patriot. Woo-hoo.

No, Honda isn’t immune from the sales tragedies of the month of September, declining 24 percent overall in contrast to September 2007. The Honda brand was down 23 percent, while the small Acura division dropped 30.4 percent. While Fit sales were up for Honda again (48 percent to 6,515), everything else was hurting. The Accord’s buyers skipped town to the tune of a 36.1 percent dive in sales, a stunning decrease of nearly 13,000 units. The Civic, which is probably cannibalizing some Accord sales (just as the Fit might be taking a little money out of the Civic’s pockets), dropped a relatively reasonable 12.8 percent versus last September. It should go without saying that the Odyssey, CR-V, Pilot, Ridgeline, and Element all saw huge numbers of sales evaporate, though the minivan had it worst with a 34 percentage point drop, declining from 16,464 last September to only 10,783 cars this month. Acura also took a beating, with huge declines for every single model they make. The usual volume models, the TL and MDX, fell 30 percent and 28.9 percent respectively. The RL and RDX sales imploded, while the TSX did fairly nicely at 2,144 units – a decrease of 16 percent – although considering the all-new TSX was introduced recently, this is somewhat less impressive. The bottom line is that even the American auto market’s golden boy can’t win all the time.

Nissan’s hefty summer incentives were no match for September’s carnage, with division sales down 38.4%. The Rogue was the only vehicle in positive territory with 5,504 sold, only because very few of them slipped off the boat and onto sales lots one year ago. Everything else was down well into double-digit percent territory: Versa down 12 percent, Sentra down 34 percent, Altima down 42 percent, the new Maxima down 19 percent. The truck side saw horrendous drops with most products in the minus 60 to 80 percent territory. Infiniti fared hardly better, -24%, with the shine off the G37 coupe (down 55 percent) and the new FX (down 15 percent). Godzilla watch: 341 GT-R’s this month, 1052 YTD.

For September, GM’s sales of trucks and SUVs were stranger than weird. As you’d expect, all of the GM full sized SUVs saw sales fall in the 50 percent range or more (Yukon down 49 percent; Tahoe down 52.2 percent, Escalade down 53 percent, Hummer H2 down 65.7 percent). And the small SUVs also died and rotted on the vine, like the Equinox (down 57.1 percent), the Hummer H3 (down 53 percent), the Cadillac SRX (down 48.8 percent), the Torrent (down 56.3 percent). But miraculously (fleetastically?) the Lambda family SUVs held on for dear life – the Acadia, Outlook, and Enclave – and managed to maintain or increase their sales compared with September 2007. The pickup trucks also shocked the heck out of the spreadsheet readers, with more or less consistent sales compared to last year’s September. The Silverado declined only a few percentage points, and sales of the GMC Sierra were actually up 1.6 percent. What gives? The pickup truck market already disintegrated over a year ago. What’s left is probably mostly people that actually need to buy pickups. While the housing construction market is nonexistent and businesses generally are hurting, pickup truck sales may have found their temporary equilibrium with gas prices. Oh, that and $5k and in additional rebates.

It really could have been a lot worse. Or, as GM puts it, “”GM outpace(d) major competitors this month… total September sales were down 16 percent compared to an industry decline anticipated to exceed 20 percent.” Yes, well, there’s this little matter of “Employee Discount” pricing inflating sales and eating into margins. And fleets. Let’s not forget the fleets. Anyway, while metal was moved, everyone took a hit for the team; all eight GM brands posted significant losses. Chevrolet was down 11.2 percent; Cadillac was down 39.1 percent; Buick dropped 20.5 percent; Pontiac fell 26 percent, Saturn skidded 10.8 percent, and Saab continued its erosion by 27 percent for the month. A handful of models made headway. The Chevrolet Malibu rose a staggering (and suspicious) 62 percent (fleets!). The Impala increased 17.1 percent. The Pontiac Vibe co-production (with Toyota) jumped some 90 percent, to 5703 units. AS for gas – elctric non-sequitors, “For the month, a total of 1,957 hybrid vehicles were delivered as GM hybrids continue to gain in popularity in the marketplace.” Remind me again how many billions GM spent on its two-mode hybrid system?

Not even giants are impervious to the economy, tight credit, and lack of buyers. Toyota watched as its once mighty sales dropped 32.3 percent overall, with the Toyota brand falling 28.9 percent and Lexus down 33.4 percent compared to September 2007 (the latter two numbers were reported as adjusted sales stats). The Camry and Corolla both took 24 to 25 percent plunges, falling by 11k and 8k units respectively. The Yaris was approximately consistent at 5,700 units sold compared to 5,900 last September. The fuel-sipping media darling Prius dropped some 13 percent to 10,873 sales this month. As for Lexus, everything was down by double digit percentage points. The cash-cow ES350 (that’s the fancy Camry) was down a whopping 37 percent; the pathetic SC430 moved a laughable 129 units. On the truck side, business was worse. The Tundra died on the lots, with sales falling 60 percent. The crucial RAV-4 was down 28 percent, and the Highlander dropped a similar 30 percent. The only real good news: the Sienna stayed oddly consistent at just under 10k units this month, and the Sequoia increased about 1k units (for a still tiny total of 2,030). All of the Scions were also down by significant margins.

Hyundai is reporting that it too was burned in September. Sonata sales were the only area of increase, with a jump of some 31.7 percent, to a total of 8,629 for September. (The nasty little asterisk is that the Sonata is so heavily sold to fleet that Hyundai no longer breaks out the actual number of cars that end up in rental and big company parking lots.) The tiny, cheap, and fairly frugal Accent dipped from 3,120 last September to 3,014 this past month. Not entirely surprising– with financing in such short supply– shoppers for a $12k car are frequently not the most desirable loan candidates for panicking banks. The Elantra also fell off a cliff, dropping 48.6 percent from 7,164 last September to 3,681 now. Don’t even mention the SUVs, which might as well have been taken out back and shot. The Santa Fe plummeted from 7,496 to 4,676. The Tuscon also collapsed, dropping from 3,693 last September to a paltry 1,294 this month. If you take the new Genesis out of the equation, which wasn’t on sale last year and replaced no model, Hyundai would actually be down more like 28.5 percent. So much for buying cheap for keeps.

TTAC called this one a while back, when we asked why GM was willing to supply “Mr. Volume” with cars when it was clear to anyone who ever had any dealings with his auto group that Bill Heard was the head of a vast criminal enterprise. Now that Big Bill has been knocked down to size, a bit, formerly silent observers are coming out from behind cover to give GM a right royal pasting. Writing in Automotive News [AN, sub], industry editor James B. Treece is [now] happy to point the fickle finger of blame. “What we do know is that GM was happy to cozy up to Bill Heard when the metal was moving. In 2004, GM gave Heard a Dealer of the Year award and the Jack Smith Leadership Award. The Smith award recognizes dealers who have attained the highest levels of sales and customer satisfaction in their region. Today, though, GM is singing a different tune.” Talk about sour notes… “It’s just individual people owning individual businesses, and it’s separate from the General Motors name,” GM spokeswoman Susan Garontakos told AN. “What happens at what dealership never reflects on the entire network.” You’re shitting me right? Treece goes in for the kill. “If that’s true, then why does GM bother tracking CSI scores, and supposedly rewarding dealers with the better scores? If a bad dealer doesn’t reflect on the network, then neither does a good one. It doesn’t matter.” Indeed it doesn’t.

Automotive News [sub] reports that Ford’s U.S. sales dropped by 34 percent in September. Metal moved: 120,788 cars and trucks, down from 184,612 a year ago. For those of you keeping score, that’s FoMoCo’s 22nd decline in the past 23 months. “Consumers and businesses are in a very fragile place,” Jim Farley, Ford group vice president of marketing and communications, said in a touchy-feely prepared statement. “An already weak economy compounded by very tight credit conditions has created an atmosphere of caution.” Caution? What about crisis? Well, you can’t very well expect the spinmeisters to spread the panic inside The Glass House. You can certainly bet they’re watching the bailout bill with eagle eyes, hoping to Christ the bill takes over bad auto loans and frees-up the credit market.

“This is the toughest economy we’ve seen in a long time.” This piercing glimpse into the obvious comes to us from Volkswagen of North America COO Mark Barnes. Despite sales of over 1,077 units of the Tiguan– which wasn’t on sale last year– every other VW flopped. As we’ve pointed out previously, those 1k Tiguan sales likely came out of the Rabbit’s hide. Rabbit sales fell 37.5 percent, a loss of some 700 sales, compared to September 2007. The Passat also crashed and burned, down 56.5 percent from 2,704 sales last September to a paltry 1,176 this September (a $24k base price and premium gas requirement probably aren’t helping). The Beetle and Beetle Convertible also cratered, falling from a combined 3,109 last September to 1,888 cars in September 2008. It’s not a pretty picture when the company that’s supposed to be selling fuel efficient, affordable European cars has a range merely somewhat efficient, rather expensive Mexican-made European branded cars. I blame staid styling (Rabbit, Jetta), the aforementioned silly prices, and an America-unfriendly engine lineup dominated by a five-cylinder tractor motor. Also, with the American recession in full swing, Volkswagen’s earned (or unjustified, depending on your view) reputation for building unreliable cars isn’t doing it any favors.

This morning, Bloomberg took a look at Renault’s epic implosion in the past year. Financially, the big French carmaker saw its stock nosedive 55% in the past twelve months. Sales are down, and Renault’s European market share has fallen from 9.7% in 2005 to 7.7% so far this year. And Renault’s traditional strong market segments (i.e. mini-minivans) have been taking a beating from other companies, including French rivals Peugeot and Citroen. To make matters worse, VW is about to come out with a new Golf three weeks before Renault releases its new Megane, and the Golf gets better fuel economy than the Megane across the board. Nissan – of which Renault owns 44% – is at huge risk in the US economy (goodbye Murano, Pathfinder, Xterra, Armada, QX56, FX35, and Quest sales). Oh, and Renault’s big hope for making their estimates for the year is a €160 million royalty payment from Russian manufacturer AvtoVaz for licensing the design of the supercheap Dacia Logan. And speaking of which, Renault is facing declining sales for the Dacia Logan as the global economy gets crappier and people in places like Eastern Europe and Latin America have less money to spend on a new car. With all this in mind, Ghosn – once considered Nissan’s savior – may have to step down from the CEO position at Nissan as a bargain with irate shareholders so that he can keep his Renault job. And you thought things were bad for Chrysler.

Even before it charts the changes, The Detroit News is ready with the excuses. In fact, the spin starts with the headline: “Soft economy drags on car sales; Analysts expect consumer jitters, effects of Hurricane Ike to stunt automakers’ numbers by 22 percent over last year.” Yes, yes; the whole market sucks. But which automakers are going to get hammered? (No prizes for correct answers.) Scribe Bryce G. Hoffman saves the money shot for paragraph 16. “GM, Ford and Chrysler LLC are expected to show continued erosion in U.S. market share compared to a year ago and sharper sales declines compared to their Asian rivals.” At least Hoffman reminds readers that GM CEO Rick Wagoner said September sales would be no worse than August’s. And earlier in the piece, Ford analyst Georgie Pipas pipes-up with “It will be one of the largest declines that we’ve seen for some time.” And just in case you thought Ford’s returned to its founder’s faith in plain speaking and hard decisions… “Pipas said it is too soon to tell how much the drama on Wall Street is affecting sales. ‘They can potentially shake consumer confidence,’ he said. ‘It definitely deserves close attention.'” Ya think?

You may recall (or continue to choose not to if you work in Motown) that 2007 marked the first year when more U.S. new car buyers shopped for Asian than American brands. The trend continues. Automotive News had a look at J.D. Powers’ recent stats on the subject and provide the takeaway: “The Asian edge grew in 2008, with 63 percent of buyers considering Asian cars and 55 percent American cars.” Yes, there’s overlap. And yes, “consideration” led to sales. “In a survey of nearly 30,000 new-car buyers conducted between May and July, J.D. Power found that Asian vehicles won out for 58 percent of buyers who considered both American and Asian new cars, up from 55 percent in 2007. Only 40 percent of consumers looking at cars from both regions chose American autos, down from 43 percent last year.” It gets worse. A lot worse. “Those who decided on American products cited a desire to buy American and the incentives that U.S. carmakers offer as their top two reasons for choosing an American brand. Those who bought an Asian vehicle cited better retained value, reliability and gas mileage as their top three reasons for choosing a car from that region, according to the survey.” And worse. “Consumers cited high prices, high monthly payments and low gas mileage as their top three reasons for rejecting a vehicle, the survey found.”

The Mazda3 is a perennial TTAC ten-bester, and a top pick for those who want some fun with their practical transportation. Now Mazda President Hisakazu Imaki worries aloud to Automotive News (sub) that introducing its Mazda2 subcompact could cannibalize sales of its long-soldiering Mazda3. “The Mazda2 is a very good product, and we’ve received very strong requests from dealers. But it is still under study,” says Imaki of the 2’s chances at a North American debut. “But I must also say that I don’t regret that we haven’t been able to supply the car thus far.” Beyond cannibalization of the 3 in the short term, Imaki worries that a moderation in fuel prices could slacken demand for the 2. Mazda sister company Ford has already commited to bringing the Mazda2-based Fiesta to America, but then it doesn’t have to worry about squeezing its volume sales leader to fit the Fiesta into its portfolio. Still, Mazda would be crazy to not bring the Yaris/Fit Fighter stateside. The 3 has set a consensus standard for fun-to-drive compact cars, and bringing the Zoom-Zoom attitude to the (on fire) subcompact market could only expand Mazdas brand. Honda’s Fit sells briskly even with dealer markups, in large part because it’s economical, practical and fun to drive. For some reason, nobody at Honda worries about it munching into Civic sales. Dear Mr Imaki, your concern is well taken, but it’s largely unnecessary. For a textbook example of real automotive cannibalism, please reference GM’s Lambda Platform. And bring on the 2 already!