For yet another month, GM’s sales [full April sales report in XLS format here, press release here] managed to be both promising and disappointing, depending on how you cut them. GM’s “core brands” were up 20 percent cumulatively, with Cadillac and Buick leading the way with 35.7 percent and 36.4 percent increases respectively (Chevy up 17.4 percent, GMC up 18.4 percent). And though GM is especially eager to boost sales numbers at its two premium brands, thanks to their low baseline sales, the solid percentage gains resulted in surprisingly small volume improvements. The General’s overall volume was up only 6.5 percent compared to April 2009, a month when the just-canceled Pontiac outsold both Buick and Caddy.

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With over 8,000 pre-orders already logged, Reuters reports that Nissan is well on its way to selling out its capacity-constrained, 25,000-unit first-year production run of Leaf EVs. Better yet, Nissan’s North America director of product planning and strategy Mark Perry says that, with those sales volumes, the Leaf will actually turn a profit for Nissan. He tells Reuters:

We are making money at the price that we announced. We priced the car to be affordable. We priced it for mass adoption

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We knew Brilliance’s plan to export 158,000 sedans to Europe had taken a bit of a beating when the Chinese automaker’s European export partner folded back in November. Even before then, the ADAC’s now-infamous crash tests of Briliance’s BS6 and BS4 seemed likely to doom the brand’s early attempt at the European market. And now, according to Reuters, it’s official. Brilliance execs admit:

We have stopped exports to Europe. For now, we have no timetable for resuming the business

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Anywhere there’s a gold rush, competitors have to worry about getting caught on the bust-end of a boom-bust cycle. With the growth of China’s car market projected to roll all the way to about 20m units annually, automakers hoping to cash in on booming sales have to wonder whether their investments in Chinese capacity will actually be used efficiently. And, as the European market is learning, government consumer incentives can also inflate projections, only to create a collapse in demand after they are phased out. These factors have combined to create a bit of a panic about the possibility of a Chinese-market oversupply, as financial analysts start reigning in automakers’ rampant Sino-optimism.

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Fleet sales were up 47 percent in the first quarter of this year, driving sales at a number of automakers. Ford, in particular, is targeting fleet sales unapologetically by touting a recovery in resale values for the Blue Oval Brand. Ford’s Mark Fields tells the Freep:

We love fleets at Ford…Ford remains focused on our disciplined approach to daily rental, making sure we help keep growing residual values

At Chrysler, which suffers from some of the lowest resale values in the business thanks in part to a longtime addiction to fleet sales, the response seems a bit more… conflicted.

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Back in October, GM’s then-CEO Fritz Henderson announced that GM would make a stand on market share, refusing to allow its share of the US market to slip below 29 percent. Oh wait, that was Gary Cowger’s campaign of 2003, which saw GM execs wearing symbolic “29” lapel pins. Where Henderson actually drew GM’s market share line in the sand six months ago was

At this point about 19 percent… We’ll finalize that, but I’m not interested in going down from that

And according to the Detroit Free Press, GM actually achieved that goal in December, logging a 21 percent share based on Autodata findings. Unfortunately, things have been slip-sliding ever since. In February, GM’s share fell to 18.1 percent, and last month it fell even further, to 17.6 percent.

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Unlike long-wheelbase luxury, the other major theme emerging from coverage of the Beijing Auto Show was hardly unique to the Chinese market. Electric vehicles and talk of automotive electrification have become a highlight of every auto show, with politicians joining executives to push EVs whether the show is in Detroit, Paris or Beijing. And yet, with a power grid that is said to be upwards of 80 percent coal-powered, China isn’t exactly the ideal candidate for an electric car offensive. China’s BYD F3DM was arguably the world’s first plug-in “on the market,” and yet the Shenzhen-based automaker only found 48 fleet sales last year, and still has yet to report a private sale. Conventional wisdom suggests that most Chinese buy at the lowest end of the market (if they’re lucky enough to afford it), while the “coastal elites” tend to spend their hard-earned profits on vehicles that convey prestige rather than eco-optimism. This is a model the global carmakers know how to work with… so why all the talk of EVs in China?

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As Bertel Schmitt has exhaustively documented, the Chinese luxury car market is hot fire right now. By 2015, luxury sales are expected to quadruple to 2m annually, making China the most important growth market in the world for brands like Audi, BMW and Mercedes. Having landed early, thanks to Volkswagen’s pioneering presence in the Chinese market, Audi is the king of Chinese luxury car brands, and isn’t showing any signs of quitting. And though 77 percent sales growth last quarter is nothing to sneeze at, longer-term trends show Audi’s market share sinking inexorably as its rivals fight hard for a toehold in the lucrative Chinese luxury game. According to BusinessWeek, Audi’s Chinese market share has skidded more than 20 percentage points since 2004, falling from a dominant 66 percent to a mere 42 percent last year. Can BMW and Mercedes continue to make gains? The only certainties are that they will try, and it won’t be easy.

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Ever since a debt crisis toppled the already-precarious auto sector into undeniable crisis there’s been a running debate about when US car sales would “return to normal.” By now though, even the most ardent bulls seem to have accepted that 2007’s 16m number will be out of reach for at least several more years. So, how will we know when we’ve hit the new normal? According to Edmunds, at least one statistic roared back to 2006 levels last month: the percentage of sales financed at zero percent.

In March, more than 22 percent of financed new cars were purchased with zero-percent finance deals. Last March the total was just 13 percent.  The prior high was 21 percent in July 2006.

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Should your travels bring you to Wolfsburg in the near future, do yourself a favor, don’t mention “Cologne.”  Don’t say anything about “Köln.” For goodness gracious, don’t mention Ford. Even colloquialisms such as “ich mach mich fort” (“I’m outta here”) should be avoided. Any of the above would get you an icy stare at a minimum. Or a uniformed Werkschutz escort to the factory gate at Wache Sandkamp.  The boys in Wolfsburg carry a deep grudge against Ford. Ford beat Volkswagen at Golf. (Read More…)

Japan’s domestic car trade can look back at the first up year in seven years. Japan goes by the fiscal year, which spans from April 1 in the current year to March 31 in the next. In the 2009 fiscal, domestic sales of new vehicles rose 10 percent on the year. You think that’s an occasion to head down to your favorite Ginza hostess bar, break out the sake, or stronger stuff, and party like it’s 2003? Chigaimasu. Quite the opposite is true. The land of the rising sun is worried about falling sales. “A strong sense of anxiety continues to grip the industry,” reports The Nikkei [sub]. (Read More…)

Chrysler has always held a special place in TTAC’s chronicling of Detroit’s decline, enjoying a bespoke “Suicide Watch” in contrast to our Ford and GM “Deathwatches.” In the first entry in that series Frank Williams wrote of a gutted firm, dependent on incentives and flagging truck sales, seemingly doomed to drag its foreign partner into bankruptcy. Four years and countless opportunities for death with (some) dignity later, Chrysler presents much the same picture. Sure, it’s been rinsed of debts and excess capacity in bankruptcy court, but the Pentastar’s brands are still fundamentally damaged from years of self-abuse and the firm is struggling (and failing) to improve on last year’s sales numbers, which were recorded en route to said bankruptcy. Inventory may be under control, but Frank’s four-year-old assessment of an investor warning by JP Morgan could have been written yesterday [with “DCX” replaced by “Fiat”]:

JP Morgan remains convinced that management patience towards Chrysler has “worn thin and increases the likelihood that DCX will reduce exposure to Chrysler.” It’s the investment community’s equivalent of yelling “jump!” to someone standing on a ledge.

In fact, analysts from London’s Bernstein Research wrote nearly the exact same line yesterday. Chrysler has officially shuffled back onto the ledge, and once again the analysts are shouting “Jump!”

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A day after Ford’s attempt to abscond with Volkswagen’s thunder, the boys in Wolfsburg delivered just the right antidote: Forget the single brand modern math. Stop moving countries around the map. Volkswagen Group’s worldwide deliveries grew 24.6 percent in the first quarter of 2010, says Europe’s (still) largest auto maker in a press release. The positive trend that lifted global automotive markets by 19.4 percent should not remain unnoted. Volkswagen is outperforming the market, and that means gaining market share.

And where does that first quarter growth come from? You guessed it: (Read More…)

It seems like the Chinese government is getting worried a bit about what Greenspan would have called „irrational exuberance“ in the Chinese auto market. If Greenspan would have worked for the Chinese. Would have been interesting. Anyway … (Read More…)

The European Car Manufacturers Association has released its March numbers for Europe. At first glance, they are promising: New car registrations in the EU (as defined in Brussels) were 10.8 percent higher than in the same month of 2009. In the EU27 plus EFTA (including Iceland, Norway and Switzerland) registrations rose 11.1 percent. From here on, we will use the EU27 plus EFTA definition, just like the industry usually does.

A lot of the growth is the last hurrah caused by expiring cash-for-clunkers programs. Then, there is the Ford surprise, which we had been tracking since yesterday. (Read More…)