Some time in summer, OICA will announce the world production ranking of all automakers and answer that all-important question: Who are the world’s largest auto makers? TTAC readers are an impatient bunch and are used to hear and know stuff before anybody else. TTAC is pleased to announce the preliminary, unofficial world ranking of 2009 production. Who’s the top? Who’s the bottom? Who dominates the industry? We present you: The top ten car makers in the world. (Read More…)
Japanese car buyers are still auto otaku. In May, new car sales in Japan rose for the tenth straight month. Total sales of registered vehicles are up 28 percent to 228,514 units, the Japan Automobile Dealers Association told The Nikkei [sub].
Not only are the sales growing, the cars are getting bigger too. (Read More…)
Mercury isn’t the only entry-luxury brand in free-fall… it’s just the worst of a beat-up bunch. We’ve included Lincoln to help illustrate Ford’s larger luxury-brand issues, and Buick and Acura for competing-brand comparison.
In January, the Chinese government had warned its (mostly government-owned) car companies to go easy on capacity expansion. Car sales in China were expected to show more sedate numbers than last year’s torrid growth rate of 45 percent. Sales did not follow government orders. In the first four months of 2010, Chinese car sales grew 60.51 percent. Now finally, the government can say “we told you so.” China’s car dealers sit on a mountain of unsold cars. (Read More…)
Honda’s decision to delay a redesign of its Civic piqued some curiosity amongst our Best & Brightest, particularly Mark MacInnis who requested a five-year sales chart on the Civic and a few competitors. We’ve gone one better and worked up a 15-year graph of sales volume for some of the more popular compact sedans in the US. Of course a significant number of those pre-2001 Civics were hatchbacks, and Toyota counts its Matrix hatch as a Corolla, so the numbers are just a little skewed. Still, it gives a fairly good sense of where the major players stand in this important segment.
Whereas Chrysler’s surprise operating profit in the first quarter of this year was achieved mainly through cost-cutting, GM’s just-announced Q1 profit comes on the strength of sales increases in most of its global markets. Though The General’s sales numbers are still lower than they need to be, momentum is headed in the right direction… albeit somewhat more slowly than had been hoped.
Despite suffering from a market-induced sales conflagration at home and in Europe last April, Volkswagen can pat itself on the shoulder for outperforming the global market. In the first four months of 2010, the world bought 20.9 percent more Volkswagen Group cars than in the same period of last year. That versus an 18.1 rise of the general market.
VeeDub’s bacon was saved by China and Brazil, “where Volkswagen is particularly successful,” said a proud VW sales Chief Christian Klingler today. Looking forward, he’s hedging his bets. “Despite the very positive performance to date, we remain cautious about our forecast for the full year. It is still very difficult to predict macroeconomic developments,” a Volkswagen communiqué cites Klingler.
Klingler is right to be careful. (Read More…)
The European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association ACEA released sales numbers for April. As predicted on Friday, the numbers are bad. For the first time this year, and for the first time in 10 months, numbers are negative. New passenger car registrations in Europe fell by 7.4 percent in April compared to the same month last year. They will get worse. (Read More…)
Ford Europe will swallow a tried and trued antidote against flagging car sales: Heavy discounting. Yesterday, Ford had announced – in a rather roundabout way – that their European sales had dropped a breathtaking 17 percent in April. Putting cash on the hood is no surprising move. Wouldn’t there be another detail. (Read More…)
Who said Brazilians are wary of imports? According to Brazilian car site bestcars.com.br, sales of imported cars rose a whopping 190 percent in April compared to the same month last year. The Brazilian Association of Importing Cars Companies – Abeiva – reports that in the first four moths of the year, a record 26,708 imported cars were registered in Brazil. 17.9 percent of cars sold in April were imported. (Read More…)
Cadillac’s new ad campaign, with the tag line “The Mark of Leadership”, has received mixed reviews. Some have questioned the use of the word “mark” because it may evoke a model name long used by luxury competitor Lincoln. Others have said that the mark itself is in question, the Cadillac wreath and crest logo, is itself tainted by association with tacky blinged out Escalades of questionable aesthetic taste. Those points may be valid, but I think that there’s a more troubling problem with the slogan and that has to do with Cadillac’s heritage.
Never has there been so much confusion over the closely watched Chinese car sales than this month. A relatively unknown China Automotive Technology and Research Center (CATRC), anointed by a report in Xinhua, had 40 percent growth for April. Then, all kinds of numbers came out. Chinese numerology was in an April disarray. Even TTAC’s in-house sales oracle, GM China became confused. First, GM reported a gain of 50 percent. A week later, the number was revised to 41.1 percent. (Which would indicate a Chinese market growth in the mid 30s.) We recommended caution. The last word on Chinese auto sales has the China Association of Auto Manufactures (CAAM). And the CAAM has spoken. (Read More…)
A study by Bosch, using R.L. Polk registration data [via GreenCarCongress], finds that fears of a diesel crash in the US might be overblown. The study found that vehicles offering diesel powertrains as an option recorded 30 percent diesel take levels. By comparison, ten percent or fewer chose hybrid versions of the Camry and Escape, although volumes of those vehicles are higher than the exclusively German nameplates that offer diesel options. In any case, these take numbers are certainly higher than the market had predicted. The diesel take rates by model are:
- Audi A3 TDI: 20%
- Audi Q7 TDI: 30%
- BMW 335d: 8%
- BMW X5 xDrive x35d: 17%
- Mercedes-Benz GL 350 BlueTEC: 18%
- Mercedes-Benz ML 350 BlueTEC: 13%
- Mercedes-Benz R 350 BlueTEC: 12%
- VW Jetta TDI (Sedan and Sportwagen): 49%+
- Volkswagen Touareg TDI: 33%
Chrysler crowed over its 9.1 percent market share in its Q1 results conference call yesterday, and though CEO Sergio Marchionne refused to be pinned down on an exact time frame, an IPO this year looks more likely than ever. Similarly, BusinessWeek reports that GM’s Ed Whitacre has hinted that a Q1 profit is likely, as is an IPO in Q4 of this year or early next year. This improvement in both bailed-out automakers was underlined by former Presidential Auto Task Force head Steve Rattner, who said the two firms were “meeting expectations,” at a Detroit-area conference. But Rattner also put his expectations into some context by saying
When we did this restructuring we never expected a full recovery of our investment. If it ends up costing us $10 billion we should consider it a success. For about $10 billion we avoided economic and human calamities… I would suggest that that’s a pretty effective cost of government stimulus
That assessment is down considerably from Rattner’s last prediction, which expected a taxpayer profit on the auto bailout.
Recent Comments