The Current State of the US Auto Market
After a lot of downs, it's looking more positive.
Punditizing welcome. :-)
Punditizing welcome. :-)
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Still, a bit of a surprise!
It looks like the auto market is recovering nicely. Lots of pent up demand after the great recession. And lots of effort from many makes. My view of the makes at this point:
GM - trying, probably not hard enough. Some good new product. Still needs a better family sedan, and image is suffering after the bailout.
Ford - was doing well, more innovative than GM across a broad lineup. Recent electronics gremlins threaten their revival.
Chrysler - reviving quite a bit, but from near dead. A long way to go.
Toyota - appears to have recovered from recent years of recalls and sudden acceleration. Needs a new Corolla.
Honda - Lost its way most of last decade. The new Accord is better and the Civic is improved. Not convinced they've done enough.
Acura - even more lost than Honda.
VW - Americanizing their cars which appears to be working even though I don't really like the changes. Still needs higher reliability and a better dealer network.
Others - trying hard. Subaru is a good niche player. Mazda has some good stuff.
Was anyone shocked that GM's pickup sales were down in 2012 from 2008? They were the oldest trucks on the market.
Someone (ahem) had posted elsewhere that news, without a link to where it was from, as if that were shocking news.
They look impressive to me. Conservative styling, a beautiful interior and supposedly best in class fuel economy from reworked engines including a
more powerful aluminum block 4.3L V-6. I'm glad GM is sticking with naturally aspirated engines as I still say these new turbo motors will have more problems and less longevity down the road.
This discussion is not called "I don't like GM, why do you?"
We've already hashed that subject to death so there's no use revisiting all that past history.
Isn't everything?
I don't think we're quite back to the party the auto industry was having in 2008.
The chrome front is indeed awful, but it looks fine in body color.
I don't get America's fascination with fake plasti-chrome on anything. I'll take my trim blacked out, thanks.
Yeah, the new GM trucks don't excite or offend me. The new Tundra is ugly IMO.
I don't know if GM went far enough with the new trucks considering how long it has taken them to develop the new model. It will only be a year or so until Ford has another new F150 out and Ram won't be far behind.
With the GM trucks I'm most curious about the 4.3 v6 and the 6.2 v8. The v6 with its displacement advantage might have enough torque for effortless light towing <6k lbs, and good economy while empty.
On the other end, I'm curious to see what the power numbers and FE are on the 6.2. Can it match Ford's EB in regards to low rpm torque and FE. But Dodge offering a diesel is a big deal IMO. Real world 20+ mpg, and towing ability has me thinking a Dodge may be in my future.
Toyota didn't upgrade the powertrain at all - a mistake.
Dodge comes in with a diesel so they're the dark horse in this race.
The GM trucks will certainly be up to date and competitive, but at this point, I don't see anything that really leap frogs the competition. Power and fuel economy are the x factor as GM hasn't released that info yet.
I like the Ram a lot. The diesel is certainly interesting.
You're starting to see a divide similar to other industries. Large,well-established companies are deeply invested in status-quo, while smaller, more agile companies tend to bring about disruptive change to an industry...and said larger companies live in eternal dread of those smaller companies.
GM is one of those large well established companies. Frankly, so are Toyota and Honda. You're seeing the disruptive advances come from the likes of Ford, Nissan, and Mazda. Toyota's last "disruptive" change was hybrid tech, and that was years ago now.
I agree.
Those have a major handicap, too - Lexus and Acura. Those brands put a glass ceiling on how good a Honda or Toyota can be.
For example, Lexus get DI but Toyotas don't. Civic was cheapened to make the ILX seem worth the extra cost.
Meanwhile, Hyundai comes in and makes DI standard on the Sonata. Half the market has yet to respond. Even the Accent has DI now. Hyundai is nimbler and has no glass ceiling, so the sky's the limit. Plus no overhead in marketing a whole other luxury brand.
Ford's doing great but at the expensive of Lincoln.
Nissan is hit or miss.
Mazda has to transition from Zoom Zoom to SkyActiv fuel economy boom else they'll be doomed.
Equus has sold better than the Phaeton did, FWIW.
Equus is cheaper with better incentives too, I think. Still, seems like something for livery service over actual private drivers.
Nissan's having good luck with their CVTs. GM is NOT having good luck with the Volt or eAssist. They need to come up with a better overall strategy like the others and stick with it.
Chrysler needs to come up with a strategy too. Right after they look the up the word "strategy."
Agreed.
They probably spent about 3 dollars re-engineering it for the US market.
It's a Korean Town Car.
In CR's real world tests is got class leading mileage, too. Not not just good in a lab.
But...the Versa sedan is weak, built to a price I guess, but you can damage your reputation selling too many cars like that.
The Sentra looks better, and the back seat is shockingly huge (bigger than the Malibu's). I'll have to drive one with a CVT. A friend has the outgoing Altima and it seems to be that Nissan makes some of the better CVTs (faint praise, perhaps).
A neighbor just replaced her MDX with a Pathfinder, so I'll check that out next time I see them.
Let's see if the Versa Note is better than the lame (IMHO) sedan.
But Hyundai might sell more than that if slack demand in other markets allows for more U.S. volume. Last year, Hyundai targeted 675,000 units, but totaled 703,007 for a gain of 9 percent when other markets softened.
Hyundai aims to increase owner loyalty
Krafcik noted that the average Hyundai store made $1 million in profit last year.
He added: "We have a lot of momentum. We have a low fleet mix, and we're going to push harder into retail this year."
not according to these owners:
lAltima CVT problems
Plenty of unhappy Rogue and Murano owners, too
If the auto market is trending up, GM will probably do fairly well and be profitable. It's the next downturn that will really tell who is operating more successfully among all the makes. Sort of like in an ice storm or a wind storm - the trees all looked healthy before, but suddenly the weaker ones that had been doing fine in good weather come down.
You might want to check out the Nissan Versa section on CVT's. it has 3 posts, all from me.... Regarding a single incident.
250 posts on the Altima? Out of how many Altimas sold with CVT's?
And, you're right about $ .vs. %.
If the incentive on a vehicle goes from $100 to $200, thats a 100% increase.
That's certainly a valid point, although Buffett tends to be a longer term trader. Maybe on this one he's just looking at a trading opportunity though. However, GM shed a lot of crap off it's balance sheet in the BK and buffed up it's liquidity, so I'd almost be more concerned about Ford in that scenario right now. But unless the next downturn is severe, I think both will handle it much better than the recent distress.
During the fourth quarter, costs rose by $US400 million in North America, GM's most profitable region. But combined vehicle pricing fell by $US300 million there as the company offered incentives to cut through its inventory of trucks on dealer lots ahead of its introduction of redesigned versions this year.
It was the first drop in North American pricing for GM since the first quarter of 2011.
Jefferies' Nesvold said the weaker Japanese yen and the deteriorating European market would probably lead to more competitive pricing in North America.
That would continue the trend seen in the fourth quarter, when GM lost one per centage point of US market share despite raising its incentives slightly, according to research firm TrueCar.com.
Who really knows what will happen with gasoline prices. There are more than a few economists and investors that think we're nearing a top this year and then prices will come down due to fuel efficiency increasing along with production. I haven't a clue what will really happen. I tend to use $5/gallon when I'm considering them.
Is the platform being imported from Australia like the G8, and GTO was? If so, I know it was expensive for GM to bring those cars over, so I if they are doing something similar with the SS, a lower cost, high production model could be cost prohibitive. I'd think it comes down to where it's being built.
Overall I like it.
What's a ute?
Wonder if this car will ever make it here?
Probably not, at least for several years...
I doubt they'll bring it, Eos never sold well.
Just curious, how roomy is the Chrysler convertible back seat in your father-in-law's (I think it's father-in-law, apologies if I have it wrong) back seat?
FWIW, the back seat in the 2010 3-series convertible i have isn't exactly a bastion of roominess...
Among the major automakers, fleet sales rose 4 percent in January to 179,000 units, dwarfed by a 19 percent surge in retail volume.
Fleet sales represented 16 percent of Toyota Motor Sales' total, double the normal mix for the company. That's up 13 percent from unusually brisk fleet volume in January 2012, said Bill Fay, Toyota brand boss.
He said a late start to 2013-model Camry production caused Toyota's fleet bump this year.
"It will all balance out by the end of the year and be [back] at the 8 to 10 percent range," Fay said.
Hyundai-Kia America fleet sales soared 37 percent in January, hitting 14 percent of the sales mix compared with 10 percent a year earlier. That offset a 2 percent retail decline and gave the Korean brands a net 2 percent gain in volume.
But the four automakers with the biggest fleet mix in January 2012 throttled back this year.
Despite expanding its offering of commercial vehicles since last year, Nissan North America cut January fleet sales 26 percent, reducing its mix to 18 percent from 24 percent a year ago.
General Motors trimmed fleet sales 2 percent while its retail volume jumped 24 percent. That slashed its January fleet mix to 25 percent from 30 percent.
Chrysler Group will re-enter the commercial van market this fall with the Fiat Doblo-based Ram ProMaster, but in January fleet volume rose a mere 1 percent.
And while Ford Motor Co. boosted fleet volume 17 percent in January, its retail sales grew 24 percent, so the fleet mix dropped a point to 28 percent.
Edmunds.com analyst Jessica Caldwell says the replacement pattern for last fall's Hurricane Sandy likely skewed fleet patterns.
She said: "Some fleet could have been deferred to ensure retailers had enough units."
The back seat is ok, I think the Avalon vert was bigger, the old Sebring seemed (?) roomier but maybe my standards for comfort have gone up.
I'd say adults are ok but I still wouldn't want to be there for a road trip.
A surprise to me was the PT convertible, that had tons of leg room. Too bad the structure was a wet noodle. No 4 seat convertible was fun enough so I bought the Miata.
Ford - 30%
GM - 26%
C- 26%
Toyota - 10%
Nissan - 15%
HyuKia - 10%
Honda - 2%