Last month it seemed like Camry could stay away from the burgeoning knife fight in the midsize segment, but thanks to some aggressive incentives, Nissan was able to record a rare monthly win in the meaty D-Segment. Malibu took a tumble, falling below the Prius’s monthly sales although hybrid sales may have spiked due to quake-related shortage fears and may yet recede depending on how supply interruptions play out. Meanwhile, this segment also has some bearing on the mounting Ford-GM rivalry: while Ford’s Fusion battles with the best-sellers, enjoying a legitimate shot at the annual sales crown, Malibu is falling out of the front pack and into the second tier of competition. Still, with the volatility we’re seeing in this segment, it’s too early to draw any hard-and-fast conclusions.

Ford outsells The General for the second month since 1998, and suddenly an age-old rivalry seems to be spluttering back to life. And, based on our latest chart set from Morgan & Company, Ford’s got some middle-term momentum on its side… although the near-term picture is still delightfully uncertain. As we roll out our monthly sales analysis, we’ll keep a special eye on the key segment battles between these two cross-town combatants. After all, one of the all-time great American rivalries may just be as up for grabs as it’s been in decades.

[Note: given the divisive subject matter, the management asks that commenters in this thread take special care to temper their allegiances with mutual respect and an open mind.]

The German new car market grew a nice 11.4 percent in March. For the first quarter of 2011, the German market is up by 13.9 percent. This according to monthly registration statistics, released by Germany’s Kraftfahrtbundesamt. The picture above however says more than the 306 words of this article. (Read More…)

Just two short months after Hyundai CEO John Krafcik warned that a brewing incentive and price war was “a step backward for the industry” and “short-term thinking in a long-term process that hurts manufacturers and consumers,” it seems that any signs of a price war are over. But before you rush to give a certain earthquake/tsunami combo credit for the entire situation, consider for a moment that Ford has now joined Toyota in raising prices while insisting it has nothing to do with supply interruptions. A Ford spokesman tells the Detroit News that

This is the second price increase this year [Ed: Ford bumped prices by $130 in January] but has been in the works for months as the industry faces higher commodity costs

Meanwhile, Ford is also the only Detroit-based manufacturer to bring incentives below nine percent of its average transaction price, as its March incentives were down nearly 10 percent compared to March of 2010. Between Ford and Toyota bringing up prices and Hyundai keeping sales growth strong despite low-low incentives, the pressure is mounting on GM, Chrysler, Nissan and Honda. Will they continue to trade margins for volume, or will they take the opportunity to bump prices as Japanese parts shortages continue to play out?

The 2011 Model Year will probably not go down as one of the better lineups in the Chrysler brand’s history, consisting of only four models from three nameplates. But, according to Automotive News [sub] it will probably be one of the most exclusive and rarest years for the Chrysler Group, which includes Chrysler, Dodge, Ram and Fiat, as the 2012 model-year will go into production as soon as dealers receive the “one or two buildouts” of 2011 vehicles.

(Read More…)

In the (OMG) 7 years I have lived and worked in China by now, I have learned not to take the first two months of the year all too seriously. After all, according to the Chinese calendar, the first two months mostly belong to the old year. Chinese New Year  is some time in late January or early February, depending on the inscrutable lunar calendar. The nearly month long festivities mess up sales, and make comparisons pretty much useless. Confucius say: “Only the stupidest of men make predictions based on January sales.”

March is a different matter.  It’s the first “regular” month of the new year. Everybody is waiting for March sales results in China. We’ll have to wait at least a week or so until the CAAM is done tabulating the sales of the 60 to 120 automakers in China (even that number remains shrouded in mystery.) But there is our trusted indicator: GM China. (Read More…)

One of the toughest challenges facing industry analysts right now involves determining what the market for electric vehicles actually looks like, what kind of volumes it will support and for how long. It’s a problem that I’ve hashed over at length with an old college buddy who now works at a cleantech investment firm, and let me be the first to say that it’s not an easy problem to pick apart. The number of unknown quantities and moving parts explains why opinions among money managers can vary so wildly even about relatively marginal firms like Tesla.

Luckily, Thilo Koslowski of Gartner Research [and celebrated coiner of the term “the trough of disappointment”] has dedicated himself more thoroughly to the problem, and has some startling findings to report. For example, despite the relentless pro-EV hype present in all levels of the media, Koslowski’s research shows that more consumers are actually considering buying a natural gas-powered vehicle. Looks like Edmunds’ Jeremy Anwyl was on to something when he called for an end to EV tax credits in favor of greater support for natural gas cars.

(Read More…)

Compared to March 2010, Ford enjoyed the greatest improvement in sales-weighted fleet MPG in the US market on an adjusted (EPA) basis. But the new king of efficiency, Hyundai, also saw its fleetwide efficiency improve, rising to 26 MPG, some 1.9 MPG better than the next closest competitor, Honda. No wonder the Koreans are the first (and only) automaker to disclose its CAFE fuel economy (as well as the first automaker to publicize the difference between CAFE ratings and the adjusted numbers you see here). For the first quarter of this year, Hyundai’s CAFE rating (as calculated by the automaker) stands at 35.8 MPG, with some 22 percent of its sales mix coming from vehicles rated at 40 MPG on the highway (28% for March). [chart courtesy of TrueCar]

For March, TrueCar has included a chart diagramming the ratio of incentive spending to average transaction price, giving us a look at two key metrics on a single chart. Short of a complete fleet sales or a retail market share breakout falling into our laps (crazier things have happened), this is one of the more important metrics you’ll want to look at to qualify the raw volume numbers coming out of March. But it’s not the only one…

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March sales are coming in, and it looks to have been another month of steady growth for the US market. GM’s “core brand” sales were up 11 percent, Chrysler enjoyed a 31% increase in volume, while Ford’s sales grew 19 percent. For only the second time since 1998, Ford beat GM’s overall volume by 5,674. Meanwhile, Nissan recorded its strongest monthly sales in its history in the US market, and at came within 589 units of topping Chrysler’s volume. Honda’s sales rose 19 percent last month. Hit the jump for a developing table, and check back in for more sales data as it becomes available.

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J.D. Power sees a strong March in its crystal ball, powered by real-time transaction data of 8,600 retail franchises throughout the United States. However growth is expected to be much more sedate than the 27 percent jump in February.

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From the “yeah, that will work” file comes word that Chrysler is pushing dealers to hire more salespeople in order to make its five-year plan goal of increasing US-market sales by 45% this year. Spokesman Peter Grady tells Bloomberg via a leaked memo to dealers

While it’s still early in the calendar year, now is the time to act. Hiring additional personnel in preparation for the spring market is essential for success in 2011.

But aren’t the newly updated Chryslers supposed to sell themselves? Seriously though, the real problem with this plan isn’t simply that it reeks of desperation… it’s that Chrysler is going to have to do more than just increase its number of dealers. After all, isn’t quality as important to a sales force as quantity?

(Read More…)

Think BMW sells a lot of cars in the US? The German automaker may have registered nearly 20,000 “sales” in the US last month, but according to the analysts at Polk, over 50 percent of its “sales” in 2010 were actually leases. No wonder BMW’s best-seller, the Dreier (3 Series), occupies a nearly unique position on the price-volume frontier. And apparently BMW will continue to look to non-sales for future sales growth, as Automotive News [sub] reports the firm has launched a new car-sharing joint venture in Europe aimed at bringing in a million new customers by 2020. The pitch: sleek new Bavarian metal, as well as the ability to pick up and drop off vehicles anywhere, thanks to smartphone vehicle tracking. But the biggest pitch, say BMW sources, is to people who would never buy a new BMW… or even lease one. And they’re not just talking about poor folks either…

(Read More…)

And you thought the dealer wanted a lot for a key fob

Today, to celebrate their new 918 supercar, Porsche announced a new special edition of the venerable 911, the new Porsche 911 Turbo S Edition 918 Spyder. Boy, isn’t that a mouthful? Actually, since it’s available as a drop top, it could even be the Porsche 911 Turbo S Edition 918 Spyder Cabriolet. I admit that the nomenclature is a little confusing, now that Porsche is making a coupe with the word Spyder in its name, and putting two model numbers on one car, so just that you know what we’re talking about it’s not Porsche’s new hybrid supercar, the 918 Spyder. No, this car is indeed based on the more pedestrian (yeah, I know, it’s a car, but work with me) 911. To be sure, it’s a special 911, what with its Turbo and S suffixes, and it’s got some unique-for-a-911 carbon fiber trim and “acid-green” stitching on the leather, to effect some of the look of the 918. I just checked on TrueDelta and a regular 2011 911 Turbo S is $160,700. So how much do you think it will cost you to get behind the wheel of a 911 Turbo S Edition 918 Spyder?

How about a million dollars?

And Porsche will sell every single one that they build.

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As the former “car czar,” who led the government’s restructuring of GM and Chrysler, Steve Rattner has a considerable interest in portraying his pet projects as having turned the corner. But in a recent CNBC appearance, Rattner acknowledges that the market is “spooked” by GM’s increased reliance on incentives and the “unexpected” departure of its Chief Financial Officer. Ford, meanwhile, simply gets rapped for not communicating a slightly lower Q4 profit than Wall Street expected. And though Rattner’s not the guy to press the point home, there’s a clear distinction to be made between a much-hyped stock aligning itself with expectations (while making a tidy $6b+ profit) and a company that’s losing key personnel while leaning on incentives to recover the volume lost on brand and dealer cuts. But Rattner’s got bigger worries than short-term financial performances, or incentives or personell changes… he sees another, equally familiar problem that’s fixing to give GM (and, to a lesser extent, Ford) the fits: rising gas prices.
(Read More…)