In the battle for market share, Detroit is making something of a comeback. After decades of decline, the unprecedented taxpayer investment in Detroit seems to be yielding dividends in the form of solidifying signs of recovery. Of course, these firms still have a long ways to go before they’re done reversing their long declines, and the turnaround has doubtless been fueled by temporary phenomena like the Toyota recall and the Japanese tsunami. Still, these are some of the first big-picture signs of a serious change in fortunes for Detroit, and deserve the attention of market watchers (graphs can be found in the gallery after the jump, along with a graph of June and Y-T-D market share).

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While I was celebrating my independence from TTAC on a camping road trip through the wilds of Eastern Oregon this weekend, it seems that quite a little debate was stirred up by Bertel’s publication of the top 10 best-selling American-market cars in June. In hopes that more information will lead to a stronger debate, I’m dedicating a good chunk of my Independence Day to an overview of the American car market in the first half of this year, starting with this chart of the top 25 Year-To-Date performers. I’ve omitted year-ago numbers in the interests of chart cleanliness, but a snapshot of last Summer’s sales studs can be found here. The contrasts are… well, I’ll let you fill in that blank. With the exception of incentive and fleet sales mitigation, the numbers speak for themselves…

Germans bought 288,382 new cars in June, that’s pretty much the same (-0.3 percent) as in June 2010. A month does not a year make: In the first half of 2011, 1.62 million cars changed hands in Deutschland, that’s 10.5 percent more than 2010, say data released today by the Kraftfahrtbundesamt. (Read More…)

Each month, we follow the ups and downs of the car business.

Cars.com has a different hit-parade: Which models sell best? Here are the American Top 10 of June. Uncommented. The numbers speak for themselves. (Read More…)

2011 started promisingly enough, with sales soaring above a 13m unit SAAR for the first four months of the year. Halfway through the year, however, what looked like a solid recovery is proving to be less than entirely reliable, as SAAR looks to drop below 12m units for the second month in a row. While the macroeconomists fight over whether this mid-year stumble is a sign of fundamental weakness or minor hiccup in a strong market “backstopped” by a seemingly endless “pent up demand,” it’s time for us to look at the sales numbers from each firm. Check back regularly as we update our developing table of sales, and be sure to watch for  more mid-year sales analysis as we get a handle on who is best positioned to take advantage of the market, whether 2011 proves to be an up, down, or sideways year.

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Carmakers the world over are looking towards Korea where Hyundai reported sales results for June today. Hyundai’s global sales rose 12.3 percent to post a monthly record in June. Kia has not released official results yet, but Reuters says that  “Kia’s June sales surged 22 percent.”

To bridge the time until Kia reports hard numbers for June, we did some spreadsheet acrobatics and arrived at the attached. The black numbers are hard reported numbers, the grey numbers are calculated. If Reuters’ 22 percent are correct, then the June table for Hyundai-Kia should look something like this: (Read More…)

New car sales in Japan dropped in June, but the drop was not as steep as it was in May.

Domestic sales of new cars and trucks, excluding minivehicles, fell 23.3percent on the year to 225,024 vehicles the Japan Automobile Dealers Association said today. (Read More…)

The US market’s Seasonally Adjusted Annual Selling Rate (SAAR) hurdled the 12m mark towards the end of last year, and was cruising above the 13m mark for much of the first half of 2011, but after a rough May, June seems set to become the market’s second month back under the 12m mark.

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Hyundai and Kia are capitalizing on their strong sales momentum in the US market, as Reuters reports

South Korea’s Hyundai Motor Group said on Thursday it was aiming to raise its U.S. auto sales by 18.2 percent this year to 1.06 million vehicles, up from its previous target of 1.01 million.

The announcement was made during a visit to the United States by Chung Mong-koo, chairman of the world’s fifth-biggest automotive group which includes Hyundai Motor and Kia Motors .

Hyundai and Kia’s combined US market share hit 10.1 percent as of May this year, up from 7.7 percent last year and 3.3 percent in 2001. And with the group’s sales seemingly limited only by its ability to produce cars fast enough, Reuters notes that the Korean media is rife with speculation that Hyundai could open another US factory. The company denies any such plans exist, but if its sales keep growing, more US-market production is only a matter of time.

Leaf or Volt? Ask the average person on the street that question, and you might get a response acknowledging that you’re talking about plug-in electric vehicles. Ask for more detail, and you may well be disappointed. Despite the many differences between the two vehicles, some simple and obvious, others subtle and complex, it’s unlikely that the average consumer is going to be able to tell you much about them. Why? Because chances are, your randomly-selected consumer doesn’t even know who makes which car. Automotive News [sub] reports that a Compete, Inc study shows

a little more than 17 percent of consumers polled knew that Nissan sells the Leaf. Another 13 percent incorrectly believed the car is offered by other brands, including Chevrolet and Toyota.

The Volt fared better. The study found that 45 percent of shoppers identified it as a Chevrolet.

Yowza. Considering that Nissan is betting bigger on EVs than any other manufacturer in the business, selling the only pure EV on the market and ramping up to 500k annual units of global battery production capacity, it needs to get on top of this branding awareness issue yesterday. Because as things stand, Nissan is making a gigantic global gamble only to find Chevrolet and Toyota stealing nearly as much credit for the Leaf as consumers give Nissan itself (13% versus 17%… what’s wrong with that picture?). Ads like this one are a good start, but Nissan needs to do more to ignore the Volt and make itself synonymous with pure-electric cars the way Toyota made itself synonymous with hybrids.

According to Wards Auto, global auto sales through May hit 32.62 million units, up 6.0% from the year-ago number. But as the chart above shows, the rate of growth in global deliveries has slowed dramatically over the past year-and-a-half, falling below five percent the last several months. So what’s the problem? At this point, what isn’t the problem? The US and Japan have been hit hard by the Japanese tsunami, while the once-blistering-hot markets of China and India are shrinking and growing more slowly respectively.

Collectively, markets in the Asia/Pacific region accounted for 2.35 million vehicle deliveries, equating to 37% of world sales, the region’s lowest global market share since May 2009.

In the U.S. and Canada, sales of Japanese vehicles slipped precipitously below the rest of the market in May due to supply shortages, pulling North America’s year-over-year performance 2.3% below like-2010 on a volume basis, despite an 11.7% increase in Mexico.

So where’s the good news? After a forgettable few years, Europe is back… and South America is staying strong.

Overall deliveries in Europe rose 14.2% in May, to 1.85 million units. The resulting 29.2% share of world sales was the region’s highest take since June of last year…

Double-digit growth in many of South America’s smaller markets lifted regional sales in May 27.6%, compared with year-ago, for a 7.9% share of global deliveries – a 9-month high.

Talk about bad associations! Bloomberg reports that

General Motors Co.’s European Opel unit is introducing models with advanced options typically sold on luxury cars, seeking to revive a business that’s lost $14.5 billion since 1999.

The GM unit is working with AlixPartners LLP on how to tweak options packages or production plans to spur higher prices, said two people familiar with the matter. They are also studying ways to reduce engineering and manufacturing costs, said the people, who asked not to be identified disclosing private plans. Some new features include headlights tuned to high-speed driving on the Autobahn.

Which leads to one damning conclusion:

“They can’t price their cars like Audi or BMW,” said Thomas Stallkamp, principal of Collaborative Management LLC, a Naples, Florida-based consulting firm. Stallkamp, a former Chrysler Corp. president, was a partner at private-equity firm Ripplewood Holdings Inc. when it tried to buy Opel in 2009. “They’re like the Chrysler of Europe.”

Keep in mind, this isn’t just any old analyst… this is a guy who tried to buy Opel back when it was officially for sale. And though pricing issues in the face of rising costs are one Chrysler-like problem facing Opel, there’s another issue that may even be more troubling…

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Bad news for the ballers: Auto Motor und Sport reports that if you want to snap up the last of the Bugatti Veyrons, you’re going to have to spring for the Grand Sport convertible version. Which means you’ll be paying at least an extra $280k over the EB16.4 Coupe’s $1.7m pricetag. Perhaps sir would rather look at something on our pre-owned lot?

After sifting through the returns from their dealers that supply real time transactional data , Edmunds now projects a Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate (SAAR) of 11.9 million vehicles, for June, just a smidgen higher than May’s 11.8 million. Edmunds sees 1,093,000 new cars change hands, which would be 11.2 percent more than June 2010.  A week ago, Edmunds was still hoping for a 12.3 million SAAR, “if the month ends strong.” Looks like it is not ending as strong as hoped. (Read More…)

How many former Saturn buyers do you figure have come back to GM for their next car? What about consumers who last purchased a Pontiac? How about HUMMER? Since we’re not bound to a strict inverted pyramid around here, why don’t you think of an answer (in terms of percentage of customers retained) for each brand and then hit the jump to see how close you were.

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