More Chinese sales numbers for January are coming in as China slowly begins to return from the Chinese New Year holidays. We are keeping a wary eye on the January numbers. They are seen as an indicator for the whole year. Most of the world’s auto industry relies on China for growth and volume. A marked slowdown could have serious consequences. (Read More…)
The Center for Automotive Research claims that its latest study [full document in PDF here] is not a forecast of EV sales, but rather “focuses on the expected deployment by states.” Still, by using hybrid vehicle sales to determine deployment patterns, and using a national estimate of electric vehicle market share annually (note: “the national estimates used in this paper do not constitute a CAR forecast and only reflect projections that were available at the time of this study”), the study finds that only 496,000 plug-in vehicles will be on the road by 2015, by which time the Obama Administration hopes to have a million EVs on the road. Still, the report envisions annual sales of plug-in vehicles as growing rapidly, from 77k units in 2012 to 140k annual units by 2015… a number that casts some serious doubt on the Administration’s recent (dubious) estimate that 1.2m vehicles will have been produced for the US market by 2015 (and not for the first time).
The China Passenger Car Association reports that sales of passenger cars rose 12.6 percent to 965,238 units in January, says the Associated Press. However, as explained in my small lecture on the use and abuse of auto industry statistics, this is not the number we are waiting for. We are waiting for the sales of all motorvehicles in China with 4 wheels and over, also known as “automobile sales.” (Read More…)
Car sales in India powered ahead in January. India added 184,332 passenger cars to its roads, up 26.3 percent. According to the Hindustan Times, this was “the highest ever in a month eclipsing the previous record set only three months ago.” Allow me to use this opportunity for a small lecture on the use and abuse of auto industry statistics, in Asia, and around the world. (Read More…)
China’s prognosticated car bubble does not appear to experience its prognosticated burst. One by one, Chinese sales numbers for January are coming in, and none of them are bad. (Read More…)
The WSJ reports that Mexico is emerging as one of the big winners the the automotive sector recovery, as Edward Solis, President of the Mexican Automobile Industry Association crows
We have a number that historically we’ve never had before. Fourteen of every 100 vehicles sold in the U.S. are Mexican-made in the month of January. Obviously, we can’t say that it marks a trend, that it’s going to continue like that, but it is very interesting that in our principal market we are growing in such a dynamic way.
Full-year US market share for Mexican-assembled vehicles was 11 percent for 2010, but with Hecho-en-Mexico cars like the Fiesta and new Jetta coming on strong, expect that to keep growing. Just don’t tell the hosts of Top Gear!
Is the auto industry headed for a price war? Hyundai Motor USA CEO John Krafcik seems to think so, telling Reuters
I think we can officially say that a price war broke out in the industry. There is apparently a lot of pressure to deliver sales results. I would call this a step backward for the industry. This is short-term thinking in a long-term process that hurts manufacturers and consumers.
Krafcik says GM kicked off the rush for increased volume by cutting prices in January, and that Toyota (which has increased its incentives by 37.5% since last January, according to TrueCar) “quickly” responded by matching The General’s price cuts. Honda, Nissan and Chrysler have also kept their incentives high, and Chrysler has told Automotive News [sub] that it plans on increasing sales by 45% this year. Says Krafcik
We’ll see if others decide to follow. It’s certainly not in our plan right now.
Krafcik has a point: though sales have recovered over the last year as the economy has come back from the depths of recession, industry-wide incentive spending is up 1.3% in the last 12 months. Rather than taking advantage of the economic recovery to bring incentives down and transaction prices up, automakers appear to be focused entirely on volume. That’s certainly the message GM has sent by announcing that it would no longer release its incentive data. And, as Krafcik points out, the industry has already suffered mightily from such short-term, unsustainable thinking… but not everyone shares his concern.
Less than two weeks ago, GM China hinted that their sales may have risen more than 20 percent in January. This was seen as a good omen, because most pundits (except this one) had predicted a miserable January for China. GM China released its numbers today, and they over delivered. GM China reports a record month in January. (Read More…)
Volkswagen as a whole only registered a seven percent rise in the U.S.A., underperforming the market in January. The Volkswagen brand did even worse (+4.2 percent ). Don’t measure Volkswagen worldwide with a U.S. yardstick. A global Metermaß must be applied to the world’s third largest automaker. By that measure, the Volkswagen passenger cars brand surprises with an unexpected jump in January. (Read More…)
Remember 2009? Luxury vehicles were unsalable. People did not have to money to buy them. Those who did have the money did not want to be seen in one. Makers that were heavy on luxury were put on death watch. (Not by this site. It monitored the vital signs of more mundane makes and their makers.)
How things have changed. (Read More…)
The outgoing Ford Focus fell several spots in the C-Segment last month, and the Kia Forte bumped the Mazda3 down a bit… but as new products like the 2011 Elantra and Corolla, and the 2012 Focus hit the market, this crucial segment will see yet more turmoil.
We had intimated it a few days ago, now it’s official: Toyota’s Prius is no longer primus (or make that ichi ban) in Japan. The hybrid that had been Japan’s best selling car for 20 months in a row had to relinquish the throne to Honda’s Fit. (Read More…)
Wherever you fall in America’s cultural geography, you have to cop to one cold, hard truth: trucks sell. In fact, in a market experiencing such odd automotive sales phenomena as no Honda Accord in the top ten, Altima taking second in the D-Segment and a Compact CUV in the top six, it almost seems like the only sure thing anymore is the F-Series and Silverado selling at or above 30k units per month. Whether you find that fact comforting or troubling, you’ll be sure to want to know the truck’s secret to success… which you’ll find just below the fold (along with a more extensive best-sellers chart).
Like any other diverse, multiethnic state, the US of A doesn’t so much have a distinct national culture as a no-holds-barred cultural cagematch of competing values, lifestyles, and perspectives. We call it “pluralism,” although more politically-minded commentators might call it “the war for America’s soul.” Anyway, with America’s cultural divide still creating yawning chasms between the experiences of citizens in “red” states and “blue” states, it’s not enough to simply look at sales statistics for the whole country. No, to truly understand the different cultures forming America’s automotive melting pot, we must look at car sales region-by-region in hopes of identifying the constituent parts of our larger car culture. And that’s exactly what TrueCar has done, breaking out both sales and discounts for the top-performing vehicles in one West coast state (California), one East coast state (New York), one Midwestern state (Illinois), and one Southwestern state (Texas). The result: a snapshot of our diverse market for cars, and a peek at our conflicting car cultures. [Data after the jump]
You think only in America can we have good January sales? Over in Germany, things are looking up as well. Coincidentally, the growth rates are similar: Car sales in the U.S. went up 17 percent, Germans bought 16.5 percent more cars than in last year’s January. These are no “deliveries” or “sales to wholesale”, these are honest to goodness registrations, brought to you by the number crunchers of the German Kraftfahrtbundesamt. (Read More…)
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