We’re still waiting to get the final February sales numbers on all automakers, but one emerging story is that the Ford Focus has finally outsold its domestic rival, the Chevrolet Cruze.

Throughout 2011 and January 2012, the Cruze led the Focus, with the Chevy beating the Ford last year by a substantial margin (231, 860 units for the Cruze versus 175,709 for the Focus). Last month the Cruze did 15,049 units versus 14,440 for the Focus. This month, independent analyst Timothy Cain is reporting that the Focus finally bested the Cruze. Chevrolet moved 20,427 Cruzes versus 23,350 for the Blue Oval’s small car.

Ford is touting a 115 percent year-over-year gain for the Focus, having sold 10,879 Foci in February 2011, but their fleet percentage back then, according to TrueCar, was just 1.6 percent.. One year later, it’s closer to 20 percent. February wasn’t even over when Ford started sending out press releases claiming that Focus sales are on pace to double this month compared to February of 2011. With reports of Ford Focus fleet sales hovering around 45 percent, we thought that it would be worthwhile to look at the fleet/retail breakdown for the Focus and Cruze in 2011, as a means of providing a bit of context . (Read More…)

If you are thinking of buying some stock of an automaker, now could be a good time.  Not because of the strong sales. Because of dropping incentives, paired with strong sales. This indicates a strong first quarter, which should drive up stock prices. (Read More…)

February sales are coming in stronger than expected, indicating a post-Presidents Day boom. Chrysler and Volkswagen lead the charts with a 40 and 43 percent gain over February 2011. (Read More…)

First new car sale numbers are coming in for February, and they are better than the most optimistic projections.  Chrysler Group is up 40 percent, with the sales of Chrysler branded cars up a whopping 114 percent. GM did beat expectations by registering a small 1.1 percent gain on 209,306 units sold in February. Analysts had expected a drop of GM sales by several percent. (Read More…)

Fans of Volkswagen products who hoarded canned goods and ammunition in anticipation of the VWpocalypse – the launch of “Americanized” versions of the Jetta and Passat – may be unhappy with how their new product lineup is shaking out. But the market is responding favorably. The Volkswagen Jetta outsold the Hyundai Elantra in January (the two finished 11th and 10th in 2011 respectively) and the Passat spends half as much time on dealer lots compared to the industry average.

(Read More…)

After we wrote about the February forecast of Edmunds, TrueCar asked whether we had seen their forecast. We had to admit that we had overlooked it, shame on TTAC.

The projections by TrueCar.com are similar to those of Edmunds and Kelley.

TrueCar expects new light vehicle sales in the U.S. to reach 1,088,321 units in February, up 9.6 percent from February 2011.  That forecast translates into a Seasonally Adjusted Annualized Rate (SAAR) of 14.3 million new car sales, up from 13.3 million in February 2011. Says Jesse Toprak, VP of Industry Trends and Insights at TrueCar.com: (Read More…)

Edmunds has handed in its predictions for February sales. Its bottom line is similar to the forecast made by Kelley Blue Book a few days ago: More than a million cars sold, GM the big loser of the month. Edmunds has better news for Ford. And much better news for Chrysler, if that is at all possible. (Read More…)

Forecasters with the benefit of real-time sales data predict that February sales will be up slightly to 1,050,000 units, lifting the Seasonally Adjusted Annualized Rate (SAAR) to 13.8 million, up 6.4 percent from February 2011. This according to new projections by Kelley Blue Book. GM is predicted as a big loser. (Read More…)

Volkswagen keeps dominating Europe’s Top Ten list (as compiled by Jato) in January.  An 11.3 percent decrease of the Polo did not cost it its number two place, thanks to the number three Ford Fiesta dropping even more. (Read More…)

Analysts predicted a down year for the European new car market, and the market complied. 968,769 cars changed hands in the EU, down 7.1 percent from January 2011. This according to data released today by the manufacturers association ACEA. (Read More…)

Not content with being the best selling compact car and third best selling passenger car in the United States, the Honda Civic is not only Canada’s best selling car for 2012, but it absolutely crushed the competition – outselling the #2 Hyundai Elantra and #3 Toyota Corolla combined.

(Read More…)

Have a quick look at this screenshot. Scan it as quickly as you scan other news from China. Now picture scanning it under as much time pressure an average news editor is under. That’s what this is for, it is GM China’s site for journalists. Wouldn’t you think that GM China’s January sales were absolutely marvelous?

Well, it’s not true. (Read More…)

New car sales in China imploded in January. This will be the message when the official data by the CAAM are announced. Which should happen any minute.

The signs are ominous: Yesterday, GM China, TTAC’s in-house leading indicator, announced (in a way) that sales in January had been down by 8 percent. Then, China’s largest carmaker SAIC said that its January was down 8.5 percent. Today, the China Passenger Car Association told China Daily that the car market in China had nosedived16.5 percent from a year earlier to 1.17 million units in January. Late in the afternoon in Yokohama at Nissan’s quarterly earnings conference, Nissan’s Corporate Vice President, Joji Tagawa proudly pronounced that Nissan sales “declined only 16 percent” in China, while the Chinese car market as a whole registered “a negative 28 percent,” and isn’t that wonderful?

Whoa!!!! What’s going on?

Is the sky over China finally falling? It sure looks like it. (Read More…)

How do you say “grace, pace and space” in Mandarin? Jaguar Land Rover is apparently partnering with Chinese automaker Chery to build cars in China. While an announcement wont come until April’s Beijing Auto Show, the two companies have applied for permission from China’s regulators.

(Read More…)

One month is far too premature to make any predictions about 2012’s sales race, but we still got our hands on the data, thanks to independent analyst Timothy Cain. As usual, the Ford F-Series and Toyota Camry were the top dogs.

(Read More…)