Hybrids "Paying Off" More Quickly, New Edmunds Data Shows
By Bill Visnic
As gasoline prices go higher, many hybrid-electric vehicles currently on sale are proving to be even wiser investments, say new data from Edmunds.com.
Considerable past discussion about hybrids has focused on "payback" time, or the period required for savings from a hybrid's enhanced fuel economy to recoup the initial higher purchase price a hybrid commands. Detractors often claimed that, from a strictly fiscal view of hybrids, most vehicle purchasers would never save enough in gasoline costs to recover their investment in expensive hybrid technology.
But with every increase in gas prices, the hybrid payback time becomes consequently shorter - to the point where some popularly-priced hybrid models can pay back their owners' investment in as little as 18 months, according to the new Edmunds.com study.
(Read more...)
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April Car Sales: U.S. Consumers Flock to Cars, Gouging Detroit Three
By Dale Buss
Americans rushed to swap their thirsty trucks and SUVs for fuel-efficient cars in April, making the month a turning point for the industry’s biggest segment shift in memory.
The stampede to cars left in the dust a Detroit Three that simply weren’t ready for its magnitude because of their reliance on truck-based vehicles, while it lifted Japanese automakers whose traditional strength has remained in small cars.
As U.S. consumers definitively reacted to $3.50-a-gallon gasoline, passenger cars outsold truck-based vehicles for the first time in at least 20 years. The move comprised a shift of six percentage points for the industry compared with last April, to 54 percent car sales.
(Read more...)
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Gasoline Programs Could Be Next Wave of Incentives, Edmunds.com Predicts
SANTA MONICA, Calif. — As gas prices rise this summer, automakers may well turn to marketing programs that include free gasoline instead of or in addition to cash rebates and low-interest financing, Edmunds.com predicts.
“Gas prices are having a profound effect on the psychology of car-buyers, so we expect that automaker and dealer marketing tactics may include free gasoline programs this summer,” stated Jesse Toprak, executive director of Industry Analysis for Edmunds.com. "As indicated in Edmunds’ True Market Value Predictive Alerts, transaction prices of gas-guzzling large SUVs and trucks will likely continue to fall.”
Meantime, Edmunds.com estimated Thursday that the average automotive manufacturer incentive in the U.S. was $2,449 per vehicle sold in April 2008, up $13, or 0.5 percent, from March 2008, and up $39, or 1.6 percent, from April 2007.
(Read more...)
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Chevrolet Malibu, Ford Fusion, Pontiac G6 Gain Traction in Crucial ‘C’ Segment
By Dale Buss
Chevrolet Malibu is helping put Detroit back on the map in the mid-size sedan segment. Even the three-year-old Pontiac G6 and Ford Fusion are helping out on that front as well.
Of course, the real Big Three of the so-called “C” segment of the market remain solidly entrenched atop it: Honda Accord, Toyota Camry and Nissan Altima. Accord was the nation’s hottest-selling vehicle during the first quarter, according to Edmunds.com data, overcoming a sluggish start since the new model’s debut last fall to move 88,000 units from January through March. Camry, at 84,000 units, and Altima, with 76,000 sales, were right behind.
But domestic automakers nevertheless are encouraged by recent glimmers of hope in a crucial segment in which they haven’t been competitive for several years -- even though mid-size sedans used to be the Big Three’s bread and butter. At least the progress lately is a place to start.
(Read more...)
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Toyota Camry Hybrid Outselling V6 Models
By Bill Visnic
Yet another sign consumer interest is turning from horsepower to fuel economy: the hybrid-electric version of the Toyota Camry, one of the nation’s best-selling cars, is outselling V6-powered Camrys by a solid margin.
For March, Edmunds.com data indicate sales of the Camry Hybrid set a new record: 6,930 units, or a considerable 22 percent of Camry’s 31,310 sales last month. Camry Hybrid monthly sales eclipsed 6,000 units only once since the car’s launch, in May 2007, when the 6,853 sold represented slightly more than 17 percent of total Camry sales.
(Read more...)
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April Auto Sales: Buyers Continue Shift to Smaller Cars and SUVs
SANTA MONICA, Calif. – As gas prices skyrocket, the biggest growth in April vehicle sales
are expected to be in small cars and small SUVS. In total, April vehicle sales likely will show a decline from April of last year but increase from this past March, according to a forecast by Edmunds.com.
Automakers are expected to report new vehicles sales, including fleet sales, of 1.3 million units for April, a 2.2 percent decrease from April 2007 and a 3.7 percent increase from March 2008, Edmunds.com predicts. April 2008 had 26 selling days, two more than last April 2007. When adjusted for this difference, sales decreased 9.7 percent from April 2007.
“It’s clear that gas prices are weighing heavily on car-buyers’ minds," observed Jesse Toprak, Edmunds.com’s executive director of Industry Analysis. “We predict that this month, the segments with the most year-over-year growth will be compact SUVs and compact cars at 52 percent and eight percent, respectively.”
(Read more...)
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Toyota Prius: Next Chapter Opens in January
By Peter Nunn
Imagine a Toyota Prius, but faster, cleaner and greener. Such a car is coming soon and will launch at the Detroit auto show in January 2009.
America has fallen for the Prius in a big way, no doubt about that. Five years on, through an extraordinary combination of style, engineering and marketing, Toyota's fuel sipping hybrid remains the absolute gold standard for eco cars in the industry.
The next generation, however, has all the makings of an even bigger hit. That's because it will be a touch bigger so offering more space. It will come with stronger 1.8-liter hybrid performance yet at the same time boast even better economy and class leading emissions, if early word is correct.
In other words, everything Americans like now about the Prius, including its unique design and crusading eco image, but in a 'smarter,' more high-grade package.
(Read more...)
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Ford-Toyota: A Race to Watch
By Michelle Krebs
While most eyes are on the global sales and production race between Toyota and General Motors, another interesting contest is developing in the U.S. – between the Ford and Toyota brands.
For the past two months, the Ford brand has outsold the Toyota brand. Ford’s recent gains narrowed the gap for the first quarter to less than 3,000 vehicles between it and Toyota. In 2007, Toyota closed the books 127,606 vehicle sales ahead of Ford. Throughout 2007, Toyota led Ford by about 10,000 plus vehicles a month.
(Read more...)
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GM 1Q Global Sales Flat Thanks to North American Drop
By Bill Visnic
General Motors Corp. says its first-quarter 2008 global sales reached 2.25 million vehicles, a drop of less than one percent despite the drag of lagging North American sales.
GM sales of 947,000 units in North America was a roughly 10 percent drop compared with 2007’s first quarter. GM executive director of global market and industry analysis Mike DiGiovanni said the number “exceeded our internal forecasts,” but also says, counter to some industry analysts, GM does not expect U.S. sales to shore up in the second quarter. DiGiovanni said the company does not anticipate a firming U.S. market until at least the second half of the year.
(Read more...)
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Strategies Changing Quickly in the Green Game
By Dale Buss
As Earth Day comes around once more, there are a few different scoreboards for tracking the relative progress of automakers in their attempt to win the green derby.
According to Toronto, Canada-based consumer-research firm BrandIntel’s recent survey of online discussion, for example, Toyota, Honda, Mercedes and Volkswagen have the most “green credibility” due to their hybrid and diesel vehicles. General Motors and Chrysler have been stuck among the least-credible because of their large fleets of trucks and SUVs and weaker lineups of hybrids and diesel options. Ford sits in the middle.
But several automakers are forging strategies for changing such scoreboards in their green credentials. A look at a few:
(Read more...)
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For Automakers, Green Mantle Could Become a Golden Cloak
By Dale Buss
Toyota clearly donned it for awhile. Ford tried it on for size. American consumers seem to think it fits Honda pretty well these days. But no one covets it more now than General Motors.
We’ll call it the “green mantle:” a figurative decoration on the shoulders of automaker that tells the world, and competitors, that their company is the most environmentally renowned in the industry, both for their products and technologies and – perhaps even more important – in the public’s overall regard.
And taken particularly in the context of an annual worldwide recognition such as today’s Earth Day, it seems at least as important for any corporation to earn the perception of environmental responsibility as to actually be doing something tangible.
(Read more...)
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UAW Strikes GM, Dana Gets Ex-Toyota Exec
By Bill Visnic
The massive gears of the auto industry’s manufacturing sector continued to grind out a changing tune this week, reacting to larger, macroeconomic forces in the U.S. economy that are mandating interesting, if not wrenching, change, particularly for the domestic Big Three automakers.
On Thursday, union leaders for United Auto Workers Local 602, representing workers at General Motors Corp.’s Delta Township assembly plant near Lansing, MI, called a strike because the local has yet to sign a plant-level contract with GM, despite what it claims have been months of negotiation. The plant assembles GM’s new generation of crossover utility vehicles, the GMC Acadia, Saturn Outlook and Buick Enclave. The Enclave and Acadia have been selling briskly.
(Read more...)
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Toyota-Subaru Coziness Could Yield Retro-Corolla, Celica
By Bill Visnic and Peter Nunn
Normally stolid Toyota Motor Corp. hasn’t been shy in doubling of its stake in Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd. and openly admitting the two will jointly develop new vehicles – including an all-new rear-wheel drive sport coupe on a dedicated platform.
Whew. Quite un-Toyotalike. This is the company that rarely “buys” anything or anybody, preferring joint ventures, particularly when it comes to vehicle development and vital components. When it decided to build cars with General Motors, Toyota bought nothing; it established New United Motors Manufacturing Inc. (NUMMI) in California, which jointly makes vehicles for Toyota and GM.
(Read more...)
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Toyota, Isuzu Lead Japan Auto Shares Lower on U.S.
Shares of Toyota and Isuzu led Japanese car stocks lower in Tokyo Monday on concerns that a sales slump in the U.S. may cut into their profits, Bloomberg News reported.
Shares of Nissan, Yamaha and Fuji Heavy Industries, an affiliate of Toyota and the parent company of Subaru, also fell after it was revealed Friday that consumer confidence in the U.S. sank to a 26-year low in April, as gasoline prices rose and the labor market weakened.
Isuzu, Japan's largest truck maker, announced recently it would stop selling its sport-utility vehicles in the U.S. Last Friday, Toyota announced it was upping its stake in Fuji Heavy Industries and the two were developing a sports car together.
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Toyota, Daihatsu and Subaru Join Forces on Product Development, Vehicle Sharing
By Michelle Krebs
Japanese automakers Toyota, Daihatsu and Subaru parent, Fuji Heavy Industries,
announced they have joined forces to develop new vehicles, including a small rear-drive sports car, and supply each other with cars. As expected, Toyota also doubled its stake in Fuji, a stake that could go even higher.
The agreement unveiled at a press briefing in Tokyo Thursday calls for the following product actions:
· Toyota and Fuji will jointly develop a compact rear-drive sports car to be marketed by both companies;
· Toyota will provide Fuji with a compact car;
· Daihatsu will supply Fuji with minivehicles and a version of the Daihatsu Coo compact car.
The trio's joining forces represents a sign of the times -- further consolidation of the global auto industry and increased cooperation among automakers to cut costs. The arrangement allows the companies to beef up their product portfolios, especially with slim-profit small cars, run assembly plants at full capacity and share development costs so no one company has to go solo on all such costs.
(Read more...)
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Toyota, Subaru Are Becoming Increasingly Entwined
By Peter Nunn
TOKYO — Japan is buzzing with news that Toyota plans to raise its stake in Fuji Heavy Industries, Subaru's parent company, from 8.7 percent up to around 17 percent.
The story was broken by the Nikkei, Japan's well-connected business newspaper, has since been picked up by other media, not denied 
by either Toyota or Subaru.
Indeed, a spokesman from one of the companies admitted privately "the Nikkei got a scoop." All of which seems to back up the Nikkei's claim that Toyota will pick up 64.25 million shares in FHI for around ¥30 billion (some $306 million).
Ever since Toyota became the leading shareholder in Fuji Heavy Industries in October 2005 in the wake of the company’s hasty divorce from General Motors, many in Japan believed it was simply a matter of time before Toyota upped its stake.
So why now? Because up to a point, both companies need each other.
(Read more...)
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Toyota Denies Japanese Government Helped with the Prius
Toyota Motor Corp. denied Wednesday it had received any funding from the Japanese
government to develop its Prius hybrid, The Associated Press reported.
Former Toyota executive and board member Jim Press, now vice chairman and president of Chrysler, had been quoted in the March 24 issue of Business Week magazine as saying, “The Japanese government paid for 100 percent of the development of the battery and hybrid system that went into the Toyota Prius."
(Read more...)
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March Sales: No Denying the Slump Is Real
By Dale Buss and Michelle Krebs
Automakers in March finally experienced the full brunt of two huge economic problems that had been nibbling at their market for months: rising gasoline prices, and American consumers’ falling economic expectations.
Sales for the industry dropped 11.9 percent in March, to 1,351,838 units, the worst performance for the month since 1993. Even more significant, the results accelerated a market deterioration that saw overall U.S. auto sales fall by 7.8 percent to 3,565,828 units for the first quarter. Annual sales rates, seasonally adjusted, slipped to near 15 million units.
A wicked combination of $3.50-a-gallon gasoline, higher prices for food and other necessities, mortgage woes and a shaky stock market left many American consumers more nervous and dispirited than anyone had expected them to be just a few months ago.
“We’re seeing new-car sales decline, not because people can’t afford them, but because there’s a lack of trust in the stability of the economy,” said Jesse Toprak, chief industry analyst for Edmunds.com. “There’s been a real erosion of wealth, and consumers are not in the mood to shop for a car. This is more of a psychological impact more than the inability to purchase a new vehicle.”
(Read more...)
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Toyota Plans Research Institute Near Detroit
Toyota announced Tuesday it is establishing a North American research institute at its Detroit-area facility and plans to spend $100 million during the next four years on advanced research.
The Toyota Research Institute of North America initially will employ 35 researchers and staff in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where Toyota already has a technical center, and plans to add 10 researchers this year and 20 more by 2010. Toyota hinted the institute will be used for its environmental efforts.
(Read more...)
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Incentives To Rise Through the Spring and Summer, Reports Edmunds.com
SANTA MONICA, Calif. — The average automaker incentive was largely unchanged in March compared with February, but incentives generally are likely to rise for the next several months as automakers try to break the sales slump, Edmunds.com predicts.
"Incentives are likely to rise through the spring and summer," said Jesse Toprak, executive director of Industry Analysis for Edmunds.com. “We anticipate that this will be especially true for the European automakers, as long as the euro remains strong.”
(Read more...)
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Time, Competition Rub Sheen from Accord, Corolla
By Dale Buss
Toyota Corolla and Honda Accord are icons of the Japanese automakers’ rise to U.S. market dominance over the last generation — reliable performers on the road, steady draws in the showroom, dependably lauded by public and press alike. And the OEMs have just produced a new generation of each venerable model.
But the long, long run of success could be nearing an end for both Accord and Corolla. Year-to-date sales are off for each nameplate more than for each OEM overall. Proliferating competition — some from sibling models — is squeezing them. Consumer consideration of Corolla or Accord doesn’t translate as predictably as before into purchase. High gasoline prices and a shaky economy have roiled the picture still further.
(Read more...)
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March Sales: Consumers Not Compelled to Buy, Says Edmunds Forecast
SANTA MONICA, Calif. — Despite an abundance of rich incentive deals, March
vehicle sales for the industry are expected to be lower than March 2007 and even lower than February when automakers report results Tuesday, Edmunds.com has forecast.
March new-vehicle sales, including fleet sales, are expected to total 1.33 million, a 13.2 percent decrease from March 2007 and a 13.9 percent increase from February 2008, according to Edmunds’ forecast on sales figures not adjusted for the difference in selling days.
The forecast is less dreary when adjusted for the difference in selling days. This March had 26 selling days, two fewer than last March 2007. When adjusted for this difference, sales decreased 6.5 percent from March 2007.
(Read more...)
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Less Than a Week in Q1; Matching 2007 Sales an Impossible Dream
By Bill Visnic
Analysts and industry-metrics powerhouse J.D. Power and Associates already are predicting a heavy downturn in auto sales for March, based on sales figures from the first half of the month. Now, analysis from Edmunds.com is providing perspective on how bad not just March, but first-quarter sales are likely to be when announced next week.
Based on average sales for the first two months of 2008 compared with last year, the Detroit Three automakers have virtually insurmountable deficits to recover to match first-quarter sales from last year. But longstanding sales juggernaut Toyota Motor Corp. — and several other Japanese automakers — won't be likely to fare much better in what is shaping up to be the brutal retail-sales environment many had predicted.
Indeed, everyone predicted 2008 car sales would be worse than those in 2007; the analysis shows just how much worse in the early going. Some forecasts predict an uptick in the second half; others do not.
(Read more...)
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Japanese Automakers’ Growth Slows Due to Yen and U.S. Slump
TOKYO — The Japanese auto industry’s seemingly unstoppable ability to grow profit
is grinding to a halt, Reuters newswire reported Tuesday.
The sector, led by Toyota, Nissan and Honda, has grown profits for seven straight years by expanding sales in overseas markets and cutting costs. But a slide in profits looks increasingly likely in the next business year that stars in April due to a slowing U.S. economy, rising costs for steel and other commodities and the U.S. dollar's tumble to a 13-year low against the Japanese yen.
(Read more...)
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March Car Sales Down, J. D. Power Report Says
Not surprisingly, major automakers saw retail sales drop in the first half of March compared with the same period a year ago, according to a report by research firm J.D. Power and Associates. The firm predicts total March sales will hit an annual selling rate of 15 million, dramatically lower than the 16.2 million rate of a year ago.
J.D. Power said in a report to its clients cited by Dow Jones that March saw year-over-year double-digit declines in retail car sales at General Motors, Ford and Chrysler. Toyota's sales also were off in the early weeks of the month.
J.D. Power recently reduced its 2008 car sales forecast to below 15 million, which would be the lowest level since 1994.
(Read more...)
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New York Auto Show: The Good, Bad and Ugly
By Jane Nakagawa
NEW YORK — The New York International Auto Show opens to the public Friday, and what a difference a year makes.
Toyota is the nation’s second-largest brand not Ford. Jim Press is the vice chairman and president of Chrysler, not Toyota. Cerberus Capital Management, not Daimler, owns Chrysler. The national average price for a gallon of premium gas is $3.60, not $2.80.
And the most interesting cars at the New York auto show are diminutive and original, not colossal and extravagant.
(Read more...)
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Economy Grabs the Spotlight at New York Auto Show
You know the economy is bad when the endlessly thriving Toyota says it may not hit its sales targets.
Remarks by Toyota executives in South Korea on Wednesday about the economy echo those being made by other auto company executives during this week's press days for the New York auto show where the economy, more than the cars, grabbed the spotlight.
(Read more...)
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Toyota Trims Tundra, Sequoia Production
By Joseph Szczesny
Toyota Motor Corp. has confirmed it is planning to cut production at truck-assembly plants in Texas and Indiana because of the economic and vehicle-sales slowdown.
Toyota is trimming production at its San Antonio plant that builds the full-size Tundra pickup truck, introduced a year ago, and at its Princeton, Ind., plant, which builds a mix of trucks and full-size sport-utility vehicles, including the newly redesigned Sequoia.
Toyota will not say how much it is cutting production at those plants.
(Read more...)
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Yen's Appreciation Tipping Japanese Carmakers' Balance Sheets
By Peter Nunn
In Tokyo, it's like déjà vu all over again.
Exactly a year ago, in March 2007, the media and airwaves were full of stories about the fast-rising value of the yen. The Japanese currency had soared from ¥120 to the dollar up to ¥115, and to some it was like the yenshock era of the '80s returning.
How Japan's auto industry, which gets hurt with every appreciation of the yen, would love to see ¥115 again.
(Read more...)
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February Sales Leave Automakers Trying To Find the Bottom
By Dale Buss and Bill Visnic
February was an awful sales month for the U.S. auto market. If the
industry isn’t in its own recession against the backdrop of general
economic uncertainty, it’s surely looking for the bottom.
Overall sales dropped by 6 percent compared with February 2007,
following a year-over-year decline of 4 percent in January. The pace
represented a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 15.5 million to 15.8
million vehicles, General Motors said. In the first two months of the
year American consumers bought about 2.2 million cars and trucks, or
about 126,000 fewer than in 2007.
(Read more...)
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The More They Learn, the More Automakers Eye Internet
By Dale Buss
Automakers will always do brand building via traditional advertising media such as TV, radio, outdoor and print. But in an ever-toughening marketplace, they’re more and more intent on obtaining solid sales leads and on buttressing relationships with existing customers — so they’re putting their marketing resources into the channels that best deliver on those goals.
That’s the main reason the Internet will be vacuuming up a much bigger share of vehicle-advertising dollars in the U.S. market in 2008.
(Read more...)
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Edmunds.com Forecast: Better Car Sales in February than January
SANTA MONICA, Calif. — February car sales likely will be off some from year-ago levels but improved from dismal January when automakers report them Monday, according to a forecast by Edmunds.com.
February’s new-vehicle sales are expected to be 1.22 million units, a 2.3 percent decrease from February 2007 but a 16.8 percent increase from last month.
"The month is proving better than some industry watchers may have expected," observed Jesse Toprak, Edmunds.com’s executive director of Industry Analysis. “This month should exceed the typical 10 to 15 percent boost in sales from January, historically the slowest car-sales month of the year.”
(Read more...)
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Toyota to Seed More U.S. Research
By Bill Visnic
News from the U.S. financial media cites a report from Japan as saying Toyota Motor Corp. plans to fund several new advanced-research groups in the U.S.
Media in Japan are reporting Toyota will establish new U.S.-based research teams for alternative energy, safety and advanced materials. The company typically has engaged such long-term research only in Japan.
(Read more...)
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Automakers Still Moving Cautiously on Mobile Advertising
By Dale Buss
Auto-marketing executives know they’ll be advertising more on cell phones and other mobile devices in the coming months. But they still have a “prove-it” attitude toward the medium, as mobile-service providers work through issues such as image enhancement and platform standardization.
“The biggest issue with mobile is still that we have to do everything different for each different carrier,” said Gregg Benkendorfer, Toyota’s national manager of media and digital. “Until they really sort that out, I don’t think you’re going to see tremendous growth.”
Christine MacKenzie, Chrysler’s executive director of multi-brand marketing and agency relations, said mobile-advertising providers still can’t “provide us enough data to justify a major move into mobile yet.” She added, “it’s still an area where we’re learning, and we’ll continue to learn.”
But carmakers clearly are moving into mobile in a significant way nonetheless, encouraged in part by the booming popularity of Apple’s iPhone and the richness of its interface.
(Read more...)
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What Would George and Abe Say? Automakers Shelve ‘Made in America’
By Dale Buss
Maybe, more than six years after 9/11 and nearly five years after the start of the war in Iraq, consumers are tired of patriotic pitches. Maybe the unmitigated globalization of auto production makes it just too hard. It might be that “green” marketing doesn’t leave room for the red, white and blue. Or perhaps the idea is just in a lull.
But whatever the reasons, the use of “Made in America” themes in car marketing seems to be at a generational low these days.
(Read more...)
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Marketing Powertrains Becomes Trickier
By Dale Buss
Back in the good old days, when an engine was still an engine and not some fuel-sipping mockery of locomotion, Chrysler dusted off its Hemi tradition, gussied up a powerful new V8 and wrote a great chapter in sub-branding history by promoting its robustness. Consumers went nuts from 2002 through 2006 selecting the 5.7-liter option and turning "That thing got a Hemi?" into a cultural touchstone.
What a difference two years and $3-a-gallon gasoline can make. Nowadays, Chrysler still touts the Hemi. But it is repositioning the iconic engine brand into a platform for powertrain diversity that notably includes a version that boosts fuel economy by shutting down half of its cylinders at cruising speeds.
(Read more...)
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Toyota’s 7-Year Loans Offer Reward, Risk
Toyota has begun offering customers 84-month loans on new cars to help dealers sell cars during the current economic downturn, an initiative that has some upside potential but also some risk for Toyota, said Joe Spina, Edmunds.com’s senior manager of remarketing.
“If Toyota Financial Services indeed offers these loans to customers with high credit scores and doesn’t do many 84-month loans as a percentage of its loan portfolio, then the risk of credit loss is low,” said Spina.
But, he added, “The risk with an 84-month loan is that customers may be purchasing a vehicle they really cannot afford. That could put them upside-down in the loan for longer. Then the loans become a tool that perpetuates negative equity financing.”
(Read more...)
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Crossovers: Many Models – But One Take?
By Dale Buss
The boom in crossovers is the biggest product story in the U.S. auto market these days. Sales increased to more than 2.8 million last year, extending a seven-year surge, and now more than 50 separate models of utility vehicles are offered on car-based platforms.
A couple more joined the fray at the Chicago Auto Show this week when General Motors unveiled the Chevrolet Traverse and Ford showcased a spiffed-up Ford Edge Sport.
Funny thing is, the more new crossovers that emerge, the more they look and feel essentially the same. One after another they’re being launched by automakers up and down the price scale, but more often than not they pretty much end up looking like some model year of the Lexus RX.
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Small Trucks: Efforts to Resuscitate a Nearly Dead Segment
By Kate McLeod
The small-truck market is disappearing, but it appears some automakers are at least giving some thought to trying to resuscitate it by reinventing it.
“It’s pretty bleak,” said Jessica Caldwell, Edmunds.com’s manager of pricing and industry analysis, of small truck sales of late. “They may be even worse than minivan sales.”
Still, with small cars making a comeback due to high gas prices, automakers such as General Motors, Toyota and Ford think the small-truck segment could be brought back to life as well.
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Toyota’s Record Quarter Buoyed by Emerging Markets
Toyota posted a profit that set a new record for a third quarter, thanks to strong sales in emerging markets, but the quarter demonstrated Toyota’s growth is slowing.
Toyota reported a profit of $4.29 billion, up 7.5 percent from the year ago for the October-December fiscal quarter. Revenues rose 9.2 percent to $62.79 billion. Toyota sold 2.281 million vehicles in the period, up 5.8 percent from a year ago.
Despite setting a quarterly profit record, the 7.5 percent increase in income represents the smallest gain since December 2006, and the 9.2 percent sales increase was the smallest gain in 2½ years, according to Bloomberg News’ records.
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Super Bowl Car Ads: Making the Grade, Failing Marks and No Shows
By Dale Buss 
The New York Giants certainly achieved their Super Bowl objectives Sunday. Did car companies?
It’s too early to tell. But automakers led the way in a field of Super Bowl ads that largely disappointed on their creative merits and failed to generate the kind of instant excitement that could help them meet their marketplace goals. In some cases, it didn’t seem as if their advertising approach was actually consistent with the strategic challenges faced by the company.
And when you’re paying $2.7 million for 30 seconds of rapt attention by the biggest TV audience of the year, you really should take advantage of the opportunity.
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Toyota May Report Smallest Profit Growth in a Year
Toyota Motor Corp. may report the smallest profit growth in four quarters because of the rising yen and slowing U.S. demand, Bloomberg News reported Monday. Toyota announces its quarterly earnings Tuesday.
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January Incentives More Generous Than Year Ago, Edmunds.com Estimates
SANTA MONICA, Calif. – The average auto manufacturer incentive in the U.S. was $2,401 per vehicle sold in January, up $167, or 7.5 percent from January 2007, and down $56, 2.3 percent, from December 2007, Edmunds.com estimated Friday.
“In January, automakers decided to be more generous in their incentives spending in hopes of counteracting the slowdown in demand,” said Jesse Toprak, executive director of Industry Analysis for Edmunds.com.
“We do not foresee a dramatic turnaround in market conditions for at least the next several months, and yet the race for increased market share is in full force,” added Toprak. “This will provide a test of the automakers’ discipline about incentives, especially that the of the domestics who have been employing a ‘value pricing’ strategy quite successfully recently."
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Gas Prices Rise; Hybrids Win Big, Says Edmunds Study
By Bill Visnic
If you’re one of those cynical types who think people are buying hybrid-electric vehicles mainly to demonstrate their environmental hipness, results of a new fuel-price study by Edmunds.com indicate hybrid buyers may not be nearly so superficial:
They’re buying hybrids to save gas.
Edmunds analyzes the number of visits for every vehicle in the market to that model’s Vehicle Details page at Edmunds.com. It correlated those visits to extrapolate what would happen if the price of gasoline rose from its $3.01 price in December to a theoretical $4 per gallon.
Bottom line: Online vehicle shoppers flock to hybrids. And flee traditional midsize SUVs.
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Toyota Shares Plummet; So Do Honda, Nissan Shares
As the global stock market plunged on worries that the U.S. is in recession, shares of Toyota fell the most they had in seven years in Tokyo trading, Bloomberg News reported.
Toyota stock plunged 7.2% to 4,880 yen at the 3 p.m. close on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Tuesday. Honda shares slipped 6% to 2,915 yen. Nissan’s stock declined 6.4% to 922 yen.
While Bloomberg noted the threat of a recession in the U.S. spurred the decline in the global stock market, the stocks of Japan carmakers were also hurt by the Japanese yen’s strengthening against the U.S. dollar to its highest level in almost three years.
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Automakers Hope Sparks Don’t Fly After Latest Laptop-Battery Flareup
By Bill Visnic
In a story posted on Edmunds’ Green Car Advisor, automakers voice their concern that recent laptop computer battery fires don’t lead to safety concerns for batteries in hybrid cars.
The latest such incident, reported earlier this week, was with a computer outfitted with a lithium-ion battery manufactured by Korea’s LG Chem – one of two battery makers General Motors Corp. has charged with developing the lithium-ion battery pack for a production version of its tirelessly-touted Chevrolet Volt hybrid-electric vehicle.
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Auto Manufacturing Tango Begins in North America
By Bill Visnic
Withering vehicle demand and a dollar battered on world currency markets means 2008 will see many automakers beginning a high-stakes dance to make more efficient use of production capacity in North America.
The efforts are most critical for Detroit’s Big Three automakers – General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC. Each is struggling to rationalize fading market share with a 2008 vehicle-sales forecast projected to be the U.S.’s lowest in a decade or more.
Underutilized plant capacity is an immense black eye for the bottom line in the best of economic environments, much less a 2008 expected to flirt with full-blown recession and what some believe is a dangerously weak currency.
Each of the Big Three recently won momentous labor-cost concessions from the United Auto Workers union, but that won’t change the fact each still must markedly downsize their manufacturing footprints.
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Toyota vs. Chevy for Brand Leadership: Chevy Wins
Toyota and General Motors are in a you-know-what match about who owns brand leadership for 2007: Toyota or Chevrolet.
We’ll settle the argument: Chevrolet.
Toyota’s argument to count Scion in Toyota Division sales doesn’t wash.
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2007: A Historic Year for U.S. Vehicle Sales
The year 2007 was historic for motor vehicle sales in the U.S. on a number of fronts.
Overall, the U.S. auto industry, which reported December and full-year 2007 sales on Thursday, saw sales drop to their lowest level in a decade.
For the first time since 1931, Ford Motor Co. was not the No. 2 automaker in the U.S.; Toyota was, even though Toyota suffered sales declines in some months for the first time in years.
Depending on what you count in the numbers, Toyota Division could be considered the best-selling brand in the U.S. Chevrolet objects, claiming Toyota shouldn't add into its totals Scion-branded vehicles in order to steal Chevrolet’s long-held sales crown.
And in 2007, for the first time in history, domestic automaker’s share of their home market fell below 50% in July, though for the year, they stayed above the 50% mark. Consider it was only in the mid-1980s that they owned 75% of the U.S. market.
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Toyota Is No. 2 Over Ford; Toyota-Chevy Battle for Brand Leadership
Toyota Motor Corp. overtook Ford Motor Co. to become the No. 2 automaker based on U.S. sales for 2007. Ford held the No. 2 spot behind General Motors for 75 years.
The battle for brand leadership between Toyota and Chevrolet is muddied -- but close and intense.
If sales from Scion, sold through Toyota Division showrooms, are included in 2007 sales totals, Toyota wins over Chevrolet for the first time as the top-selling brand in the U.S.
Take out Scion, however, and Chevy holds onto the top spot, but by a narrow margin -- one that has been narrowing in recent years.
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Automakers Hiked Incentives in Attempt to End Year on a High Note
The average automotive manufacturer incentive in the U.S. is estimated to have been $2,472 per vehicle sold in December 2007, up $197, or 8.7 percent, from November 2007, and up $157, or 6.8 percent, from December 2006, according to calculations by Edmunds.com.
Domestic automakers as well as European, Japanese and Korean ones raised incentives in December in an attempt to end the year on a high note.
However, sales reports, being released on Thursday, indicate that note was not so high. Industry sales for the year are expected to come in at 16.1 million, the lowest level since 1998.
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2007-2008 Vehicle Sales: Slowest Years in a Decade
Often a particularly challenging year is sent passing into the history books with a collective “good riddance” and sigh of relief. And while automakers selling vehicles in the U.S. surely are glad the tough 2007 is over, they are bracing for rather than embracing the arrival of 2008.
On Thursday, automakers report December and full-year 2007 vehicle sales. 2007 is likely to see the lowest sales since 1998.
Forecasters predict 2008 sales will be even lower. But 2009 could be a turnaround year.
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Automakers Blog to Make Their Point, Connect With Customers
By Dale Buss
When Chrysler CEO Bob Nardelli didn’t like the negative stories being written about the automaker in the
business press over the past couple of weeks, he didn’t write nasty letters to the editor that may or may not have been published. He didn’t call a press conference to discredit the reports.
He blogged.
He used Chrysler’s The Firehouse blog to set the record straight that the automaker was not in the dire financial straits that had been reported. He insisted Chrysler was making progress in its turnaround and had the full backing of new owner Cerberus Capital Management.
The day after Chrysler posted Nardelli's blog, newspapers covered it as a story, demonstrating one of the many ways automakers are using blogs to get their viewpoints across as well as to communicate with customers and potential buyers.
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