The minivan segment has been in decline since 1995, and among the ashes of this once heavily-contested sector, three players remain: Chrysler Group LLC (Dodge Grand Caravan/Chrysler Town & Country); Honda Motor Co. Ltd. (Odyssey) and Toyota Motor Corp. (Sienna).
Honda's launching the new-generation 2011 Odyssey this month, heaped with thoughtful functionality improvements, only the best family-friendly tech gear and an all-new top trim level. But of the Odyssey's two competitors, only one - Toyota - truly has to worry, because only about one in 10 Odyssey shoppers even considers the Chrysler minivans, according to Edmunds.com data.
The Environmental Protection Agency is going to slap new fuel-economy and emissions labels on every new vehicle beginning with the '12 model year, labels designed to give more useful information and present it in a more user-friendly format.
Last week the EPA broke cover with two proposals for the new labeling and said it is seeking public input at its own website. But Edmunds.com, parent of AutoObserver, is conducting its own survey to ask a specific audience - you, the readers from all of the Edmunds.com properties - which label works best.
Completing the survey takes but a simple mouse-click, although there is a section to include thoughts and comments.
Meanwhile, for those who want a detailed background of what's behind the new labels and how the information will apply to current and future new vehicles, there is an exhaustive rundown from Edmunds.com here, which some might find helpful prior to voting for their preferred new fuel-economy label.
The recession may not have changed everything about the auto business - but it's changed just about everything. And here's the one that currently is hurting automakers at the most fundamental level: buyers who in normal times would have been snapping up new vehicles now are shopping the used-car market. And those who were cracking open the wallet for a premium badge are shifting to less-indulgent, less high-falutin brands.
This "substitution effect" is what many analysts expected as a plausible outcome of extensive unemployment, under-employment and a drastic downshifting of household consumption. What largely wasn't expected is how extensively the substitution effect is manifesting across multiple metrics, as Edmunds.com has identified.
The Hyundai Sonata is racing to the top of U.S. sales charts.
In August, Sonata grabbed third place among midsize cars for the third time since it was vastly redesigned earlier this year as a 2011 model;it is nudging the rear bumper of the Honda Accord.
The Toyota Camry remained in first place in sales among midsize sedans, but the Sonata easily overtook Nissan Altima in August; it already had passed by the Chevrolet Malibu and Ford Fusion.
Overall, the Sonata has soared to sixth place among all vehicles sold in the United States -- it's highest ranking ever. It has been No. 1 for 22 of the past 24 weeks for shopping consideration among consumers visiting Edmunds.com.
And Hyundai has been selling only one version of the Sonata; hybrid and turbo models are upcoming.
Package-delivery giant UPS now is offering a "carbon-neutral" shipping option to customers who use its UPS Store locations to ship a package.
That leaves open to speculation whether the auto industry might also borrow the idea to "help" environmentally concerned customers assuage their guilt over buying one of the hulking SUVs or full-size pickup trucks that have become rather unfashionable with the green crowd. August sales of trucks and SUVs show the segments have been selling comparatively well in an otherwise struggling market.
Steve Rattner, President Obama's car czar, has released galley proofs of ``Overhaul,'' a book that gives an insider's peek at the government's restructuring of the U.S. auto industry, most notably the two automakers that filed for bankruptcy, General Motors and Chrysler.
The 320-page memoir, to be published October 14 by Houghton Mifflin, lauds the government's efforts, spicing the tale with tittle-tattle such as the four-letter expletive aimed at the UAW by President Barack Obama's chief of staff Rahm Emanuel. A White House source, speaking without attribution, told the Washington Post that Emanuel defended and advocated for the autoworkers.
In his first communication with employees, new General Motors CEO Dan Akerson relayed in a Labor Day letter extended his hand to the company's unions and gave employees a pat on the back.
Akerson, officially installed this week as GM's fourth CEO in 17 months, shared a conversation he had recently with UAW President Bob King and UAW Vice President Joe Ashton at the union's downtown headquarters, known as Solidarity House.
"We agreed that, while we will not always see eye to eye on everything, GM will succeed to the extent that management and labor work together. I believe very deeply in that, Akerson wrote.
He added in the missive: "Coming from a union family, I know on a very personal level the good things that unions can do."
Edmunds.com analysts Karl Brauer, Jessica Caldwell, Ivan Drury and Michelle Krebs recap August sales, discussing the long hangover of last summer's Cash for Clunkers, Ford's overtaking of Toyota, Hyundai's momentum and the surge in big SUV sales. They also give a glimpse of the rest of 2010 that looks to be stuck in first gear.
The entire auto industry knew August sales weren't going to stack up well compared to last year: after all, the Cash for Clunkers program in August, 2009 lured an astonishing number of even recession-addled consumers into what had been gloomy showrooms for ten months out of the year.
So when General Motors Co. was one of the first major automakers to announce August sales results today, GM's decline of 25 percent set the pace for how most other makers are expected to proceed.
Even booming Hyundai Motor America wore the collar of an 11-percent sales slide in August, as its record-setting retail market share (5.3 percent) and year-to-date sales increase of 17 percent couldn't overcome volume comparison with last August. Similarly, Ford, another Cash for Clunkers beneficiary, had 11 percent lower sales.
U.S. auto sales have entered a period where treading water is the best the industry can hope for as American consumers deal with sobering economic realities and grim expectations.
August sales results underscored that trend, coming in at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 11.5 million units, solidly within the narrow range of the last few months - and consistent with previous expectations for the rest of the year and 2010 as a whole.
Last week the EPA broke cover with two proposals for the new labeling and said it is seeking public input at its own website. But Edmunds.com, parent of AutoObserver, is conducting its own survey to ask a specific audience - you, the readers from all of the Edmunds.com properties - which label works best. 
Package-delivery giant UPS now is offering a "carbon-neutral" shipping option to customers who use its UPS Store locations to ship a package. 
In his first communication with employees, new General Motors CEO Dan Akerson relayed in a Labor Day letter extended his hand to the company's unions and gave employees a pat on the back.
