The CEO of the largest car dealer in the U.S. told Reuters on Wednesday that automakers shouldn’t base incentives on volume, which could jeopardize cutting profits.
“We really have to watch the quality of volume,” AutoNation CEO Mike Jackson told Reuters. “We have to find the right balance between price and volume.”
Jackson said he doesn’t anticipate auto sales to waver far from 2015’s record year, but he does foresee “entering a new chapter” with weaker demand for cars. (Read More…)
“What do I gotta do to get you to drive out of here in a brand-new 2016 Chevrolet Malibu today?”
That, Ford and Google are moving to the country, Hyundai halts in China and Volvo’s wagon spied in some guy’s garage … after the break! (Read More…)
Speaking to Automotive News, BMW of North American CEO Ludwig Willisch said the company expects that nearly half of their 2016 sales will be of crossovers for 2016 — and it’ll only go up from there.
“In the first nine months (of 2015), across the board, we had too few X1, X3 and X5s,” he said.
For this year, BMW expects that 40 percent of its sales will be crossovers, up from 34 percent last year.
“In a couple of years when we have the X7, it will be even higher,” he added. BMW’s crossover lineup consists of the X1, X3, X4, X5, X6 and soon-to-arrive X2 and X7. Are there any numbers BMW can invent between 1 and 8?
You’ve made some bad decisions at the holiday office Christmas party. We’ve all done it. Don’t compound it by using a (probably inaccurate) free breathalyzer that you picked up at a Honda dealer instead of a cab ride.
That, and Subaru is turning production up to “11,” Hyundai was hit hard in China and Nevada’s rolling the dice on electric cars … after the break.
According to a report from Allpar, Chrysler’s model mix might be getting a major re-shuffle compared to Sergio Marchionne’s much touted five-year plan shown in 2014. While Allpar doesn’t list a source, a recent investor presentation marked Chrysler’s future lineup as “under re-evaluation”.
The five-year plan called for a new C-segment sedan, which was dubbed Chrysler 100, and a slew of other new product.
With fuel prices expected to stay at their current level until at least 2020 and the market eschewing smaller cars for crossovers, the time may not be right for the Chrysler 100 in North America, reports Allpar.
Toyota’s Senior Vice President for Operations Bob Carter has been quite the chatty cathy Thursday. According to Reuters, the automaker is planning to boost production of its Tundra and Tacoma to help meet demand for trucks next year, in part, because supplies of the trucks are so low today.
Toyota has roughly 20 days supply of its Tundra and only 10 days supply of its new Tacoma, which has sold like hell since it was introduced last month.
“If you were to ask any of our U.S. dealers what they want, I’d say every one of them would say ‘More trucks,'” Carter told Reuters. Or more Tacomas?
Volkswagen has recently confessed admitted to a steep decline in sales this past November thanks to a 25-percent decline for the Volkswagen brand and a mind bending, 60-percent cliff dive for the soon-to-be replaced Volkswagen Passat.
Apparently, there are still plenty of 2015 Passats and Jettas available to loyal would-be owners along with a variety of other weird birds, such as the 2015 Volkswagen Beetle R-Line Convertible and whatever dark backlot corner is still molderizing the aptly named Final Edition Volkswagen Eos.
All this corporate bloodletting brings on an interesting distinction for the Passat. You can now buy the very last, brand-new mid-sized sedan in America that is less than $15,000: a 2015 Volkswagen Passat 1.8T S with a 5-speed manual.
Should you?
While the rest of the world warms up to our Thanksgiving tradition of football and mountains of potatoes and gravy, we must admit that the world goes on without us some days.
Thankfully, the Internet never forgets. So here’s a roundup of the stories we missed in our Tryptophan-induced naps.
Detroit automakers may be betting high-profit SUVs and trucks are a better fit for their domestic plants as those automakers shift production away from cars to make room for larger, high-margin vehicles.
Ford and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles will largely shift production of their cars to Mexico and bring more trucks and SUVs to North American facilities, according to their contracts with the United Auto Workers, Automotive News reported.
The report consolidates production planning schedules included in UAW contracts with domestic automakers, which shows automakers’ plans to move some of their cars to Mexico or overseas. Of the Big Three, General Motors will sell the most domestically produced cars in North America, including the Malibu, Impala, Sonic, Bolt and Volt, although the small-car plant recently announced a slowing production schedule. Ford will still produce the Mustang and Fusion at its Flat Rock plant in Michigan. (Read More…)
If you happen to live somewhere in the United States where radio waves can be transmitted and/or received, you’ve no doubt heard of the “Friends and Neighbors” sale that is going on Now At Your Local Ford Dealer. It sounds like a pretty good deal, doesn’t it? Employee pricing for everybody!
Not so fast, my friends.
Like nearly everybody on God’s Green Earth, I qualify for X Plan pricing at Ford. It’s how I effortlessly purchased/leased my Flex and my Fiesta ST. X Plan is Ford’s code for supplier pricing, and it’s typically about four-percent higher than invoice. It also limits the documentation fees that dealers can charge, which can be insane in some states.
Can better deals be negotiated? Certainly. However, for a low-stress car buying experience, it’s hard to beat. You simply walk into a dealership, they print off the X Plan price, you give them your certificate, and you walk out half an hour later with a new set of keys.
Ford also has pricing for actual employees and their immediate families, called A Plan, which is a little bit better than X Plan but it follows essentially the same guidelines. All that’s required is proof of employment and a PIN code you generate from Ford’s employee site.
So wouldn’t you think that “an inside deal for everyone” would be A Plan, or at least X Plan? You’d be somewhat right, but you’d be mostly wrong. Here’s why.
Hyundai said Thursday that its quarterly profit fell 23 percent after slowing sales in China overshadowed gains made in Europe and North America, Bloomberg reported (via Automotive News).
The automaker reported a net income of $1 billion during the third quarter of 2015, which ended on Sept. 30. The loss is in contrast to automakers such as General Motors and Daimler, who both reported gains in China, despite that country’s slowing economy.
Volkswagen is offering up to double the average amount of incentives on some of its cars to help dealers during its diesel crisis, Bloomberg reported (via Automotive News).
Dealers, who received no-strings-attached cash from Volkswagen at the beginning of this month, are offering up to 11 percent off their cars’ stickers to help weather the storm of its diesel cheating scandal. The industry average is roughly 6.2 percent according to TrueCar. (Read More…)
Total Fiat Chrysler Automobiles volume is up six percent this year thanks to record sales at Jeep, FCA’s top-selling outlet. However, despite that wave of Jeep-directed affection in the U.S., sales at the company’s other brands have fallen two percent through the first nine months of 2015.
Even in September, an extraordinarily high-volume month for the U.S. auto industry, a month in which sales shot up 15 percent compared with the same period one year earlier, FCA’s non-Jeep marques posted only a modest one percent increase. Jeep’s 40 percent surge to more than 77,000 sales produced a 14 percent overall uptick for FCA’s U.S. operations, which includes Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, and Ram plus Fiat and Alfa Romeo. (Read More…)
Jeep is a pillar of financial strength for FCA. The brand is poised to deliver its sixth consecutive year of growth. Even if you despise the Compass and Patriot, it would be difficult to argue that Jeep CEO Mike Manley has been anything but a good steward of the brand.
But how is Jeep going to keep its 6,500 UAW members in Toledo working after 2017 when the Cherokee departs and there’s a gaping 240,000 unit hole to fill? Uncertainty over how this gap will be filled, in conjunction with the failure of union negotiators to eliminate the two-tier wage system, were the primary factors in a strong no vote from UAW members in Toledo last week. Nonetheless, FCA has a unique opportunity to address their workforces’ legitimate concern over job security, give consumers what they want, and find new homes for Jeep products across the globe.
The average transaction price for a new car edged up slightly August to September from $33,563 to $33,730, researchers at Kelley Blue Book said Thursday.
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles posted the largest gain over the same month last year, as the automaker increased its average transaction price 4.1 percent to $34,809. Unsurprisingly, Volkswagen was the only major automaker to post a loss in the report, losing 1.6 percent from August to September this year, and 0.1 percent from September 2014.
Ford, General Motors and Kia/Hyundai all posted gains over 3 percent, year-over-year. Overall, the industry average for new car transaction prices rose 2 percent from September 2014 to September 2015. Toyota was the other automaker to fall below the industry average for gains. Its average transaction price increased by only 0.6 percent.
Recent Comments