November 18, 2024

You are here: Home / Archives for small cars

Auto Sales for February 2013 Jumped 3.7%

March 2, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Automakers sold 1.19 million vehicles during the month, a 3.7 percent increase over the period a year earlier, according to the research firm Autodata.

The seasonally adjusted annual sales rate, a closely watched market indicator, totaled about 15.4 million vehicles. The rate bodes well for the industry, as automakers increase production to meet demand for their new products.

The February results were a bit lower than anticipated, analysts said, attributing part of the slowdown during the latter part of the month to rising gas prices and fluctuations in the stock market.

“Whenever there is uncertainty in the stock market, the car market doesn’t like it,” said Jesse Toprak, an analyst with the automotive research site TrueCar.com. “But despite lower stocks and higher gas prices, consumers continued to buy.”

The two largest Detroit car companies, General Motors and Ford Motor, posted some of the best results among all the major automakers.

G.M. said it sold 224,000 vehicles in February, a 7.2 percent increase from the same month in 2012.

All of G.M.’s domestic brands — Chevrolet, Cadillac, GMC and Buick — had higher year-over-year sales.

Cadillac led the way with a 20 percent gain, primarily because of healthy sales of the new ATS compact sedan.

G.M. also reported increases in sales of its newest small cars, like the Buick Verano and the Chevrolet Spark. But its most prominent gains were in pickup trucks. The company said sales of the Chevrolet Silverado pickup rose 29 percent, and the GMC Sierra increased 25 percent.

Executives attributed the performance to a surge in housing starts and the need for construction companies to replace older pickups.

“A significant tail wind for our industry is new home construction, which is creating jobs and fueling the demand for pickups,” said Kurt McNeil, G.M.’s vice president for United States sales operations.

Ford said it sold 195,000 vehicles during the month, which represents a 9.3 percent gain from a year ago.

Much of Ford’s gains came from sales of sport utility vehicles like the Escape and Explorer. The company’s redesigned midsize sedan, the Fusion, also had a good month, with a 28 percent improvement over last year.

And like G.M., Ford also benefited from higher demand for pickups. Ford said that it sold 54,000 F-series trucks during the month, a 15.3 percent increase from February 2012.

But Ford is still struggling to invigorate its lagging Lincoln luxury brand, which dropped 29 percent in sales.

“Lincoln’s performance was dismal,” said Michelle Krebs, an analyst with the research site Edmunds.com.

The growth rate at Chrysler, the smallest of the Detroit automakers, slowed somewhat after several months of recording double-digit increases.

The company said that it sold 139,000 vehicles in February, a 4.1 percent improvement over a year earlier. That is a smaller increase than Chrysler has reported in previous months.

“In spite of a cautious ramp up of some of our most popular products, which limited inventory last month, we still managed to record our strongest February in five years,” said Reid Bigland, head of United States sales for Chrysler.

Chrysler’s best performers during the month were passenger cars like the new Dodge Dart.

Sales of its Ram pickup increased 3 percent, while sales of its Jeep sport utility vehicles dropped 16 percent.

The big Japanese automakers had mixed results, as they continued their methodical comeback from inventory disruptions because of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan two years ago.

Toyota, the largest Japanese car manufacturer, said it sold 166,000 vehicles in February, about 4.3 percent more than a year earlier.

Usually, Toyota’s passenger cars are its hottest sellers and its trucks trail the market. But in February the roles were reversed, as its car sales dropped about 3 percent and its sport utility vehicles and truck sales increased by 16 percent.

Honda reported a 2 percent drop in sales, to 107,000 vehicles. The company said heavy winter storms in the Northeast, traditionally one of its strongest regions, contributed to the decline.

And Nissan said its February sales slid about 6.6 percent, to 99,000 vehicles.

February was a relatively good month for Volkswagen, the big German automaker, which is rapidly expanding its United States operations.

V.W. said it sold 42,000 vehicles during the month, an 8.4 percent increase from the previous year. The results were fueled primarily by strong sales of its Audi luxury-brand vehicles, which rose about 28 percent.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/02/business/detroit-car-sales-climb-again.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Global Business Tagged With: , ,

Americans Flock to Car Showrooms With Wallets Open

December 5, 2011 by Leave a Comment

With analysts projecting that December will be even better, the industry is closing the year strong despite continued sluggishness in the nation’s economy. Consumers and businesses are finding they can no longer put off replacing their vehicles, which are now an average of almost 11 years old, a record.

Chrysler said sales for all its brands surged 45 percent in the United States compared with November 2010. Sales of its passenger cars more than doubled, and the Chrysler brand, which has been advertising heavily, reported a 92 percent increase. Sales of Jeeps climbed 50 percent for that brand’s best November since 2003.

Sales were up 13 percent for the Ford Motor Company. It sold 26 percent more trucks and sport utility vehicles but 9 percent fewer cars. Demand for the Ford Explorer S.U.V. more than tripled.

General Motors said its sales rose 7 percent. Sales of G.M.’s compact and subcompact cars, including the Chevrolet Cruze, were 54 percent higher, and it sold 31 percent more full-size pickup trucks.

“We are seeing a broad spectrum of customers return to the market,” Don Johnson, G.M.’s vice president of United States sales operations, said in a statement. “Truck sales showed a very solid increase, as we expected, but the momentum building behind our most fuel-efficient vehicles was even stronger.”

One automaker that did not report a gain was Honda, whose sales fell 6 percent. Honda’s operations were the most disrupted by the March earthquake and tsunami in Japan and the company is still working to fully rebuild its inventories. Toyota, which also experienced a sales downturn for much of the year, said it sold 7 percent more cars and trucks in November.

Nissan reported a 19 percent gain, led by higher demand for its Versa and Sentra small cars.

Many consumers who held off buying a new vehicle because of the uncertain economy, or because of inventory shortages that caused prices to jump, are now making a purchase. The result is a “mini-bubble” that will end in early 2012, said Edmunds.com, a Web site for automotive information.

The industry’s annualized selling rate, seasonally adjusted, climbed in November to 13.63 million vehicles, the highest since the government’s cash-for-clunkers program in August 2009. In June, the selling rate was 11.45 million.

Automakers are on track to sell at least 12.7 million vehicles this year, about 10 percent more than last year.

“People are now returning to the marketplace, and that’s what’s driving the sales increases over the last couple of months,” said Jeremy Anwyl, the chief executive of Edmunds. “But the idea that there’s a sustained turnaround under way and that this will continue is probably overstating things.”

But Ford executives said they expected the market to keep growing steadily, and they increased fourth-quarter production by 2 percent from the company’s previous forecast.

“The industry sales rate has exceeded 13 million in each of the last three months,” said Ken Czubay, Ford’s vice president for United States marketing, sales and service, said in a statement. “This suggests the current momentum is not an aberration. We believe replacement demand will continue to support stronger levels in 2012.”

November was the best month so far for G.M.’s plug-in hybrid car, the Chevrolet Volt. It sold 1,139 Volts, bringing the year’s total to 6,142. G.M. officials acknowledged Thursday for the first time that the company would not achieve its goal of selling 10,000 Volts this year after federal safety regulators said they were opening an investigation into the car’s 400-pound lithium-ion battery pack.

G.M. has since sent letters to all Volt owners to reassure them of the car’s safety, and it offered to lend anyone who was concerned about the issue a replacement vehicle free. It also has offered to buy back cars from dissatisfied owners.

Sales of the Volt’s primary competition, the Nissan Leaf, were 672 in November, for a total of 8,720 this year. Both cars were introduced in late 2010.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=fb87add953697b28625a72fc2c61ed6a

Filed Under: Economy News Tagged With: ,

Making Rebound, Detroit Focuses on Smaller Cars

May 30, 2011 by Leave a Comment

By refocusing on small cars and de-emphasizing the gas-guzzlers that had long sustained the industry, General Motors and Ford in particular are preserving jobs and positioning themselves to prosper. Their efforts are already paying off in the marketplace. Ford’s tiny Fiesta is the best-selling subcompact in the United States this year, and G.M.’s Chevrolet Cruze outsold every other compact car in America last month except the segment-leading Honda Civic.

Nearly one in four vehicles sold in the United States in April was a compact or subcompact car, compared with one in eight a decade ago. Of the small cars sold in April, about 27 percent were American models, compared with 20 percent a year earlier. Data on sales in May will be released on Wednesday.

“There is a less-is-more mentality,” said Jeremy Anwyl, chief executive of the auto research site Edmunds.com. “The market demand and receptivity for these vehicles just didn’t exist four or five years ago.”

The transformation in Detroit was sparked by the worst financial crisis in generations, but was also assisted by an unusual set of circumstances.

The United Auto Workers made steep concessions on wages and benefits. The Obama administration used the opportunity of the bankruptcies of G.M. and Chrysler to prod them on fuel efficiency. Japanese carmakers like Toyota and Honda became complacent about their frontrunner status. And the psychology of the American car buyer underwent a stunning change.

“The most important thing we had to do was restore our reputation as a fuel-economy company,” said James D. Farley Jr., Ford’s head of global sales and marketing. “Without that, we couldn’t get a wide group of people to even consider these new products.”

After decades of turning out embarrassingly uncompetitive small cars like the Chevy Vega and Ford Pinto that rarely contributed to their bottom lines, G.M. and Ford have devoted their vast global resources to producing new models that are both fuel-conscious and laden with technology and attractive features. Chrysler, the smallest of the Detroit car companies, has been slower to make the changes, but with the help of its Italian partner Fiat it is headed in the same direction, with a new compact model expected next year.

The emphasis on smaller vehicles has proven to be a necessity for the recovering auto companies. Rising fuel prices have prompted a steady migration away from bigger vehicles since the spring of 2008, when gas hit $3.50 a gallon. Industry analysts and company executives say the shift is likely a permanent one, as consumers flock to small cars packed with features like heated leather seats, Internet access and voice-activated entertainment systems.

With every new small car sold, the acceptance of American brands is reinforced as automakers erase the bad memories of their cheap and unappealing “econo-boxes” of the past.

“This car has changed my impression of Detroit, big time,” said Christopher L. Garcia-Rivera of Northborough, Mass., who averages nearly 40 miles to the gallon in the Ford Fiesta he bought for $14,900 in April.

The signs of change are apparent everywhere in the industry’s home state of Michigan, where Ford has converted a former S.U.V. plant to build small cars that will be available in hybrid and electric versions, and G.M. is preparing to make the first subcompact model it has ever produced in the United States.

Ford got a head start on its small-car push when it hired an outsider, Alan R. Mulally from Boeing, to reorganize its operations five years ago. G.M., however, had to go through bankruptcy in 2009 before it could shed its big-truck mentality.

“We focused our resources where the market was before,” said Mark L. Reuss, president of G.M. North America. “You have got to spend money to do great small cars.”

The dominance of the Japanese small car has eroded, in part, because Toyota and others didn’t consistently update their models in recent years. “Toyota really dropped the ball with their bland styling and plastic interiors,” said John Menschede, a retired county assessor in High Ridge, Mo., who paid $19,700 for a Cruze with a turbo-charged engine and Bluetooth wireless communication equipment. “I wanted something with a lot of bells and whistles and that’s what I got.”

Still, foreign cars continue to give Detroit stiff competition. The Korean carmaker Hyundai has introduced well-received models, and Honda recently started selling a new version of the Civic, the perennial market leader. But instead of a few Japanese models grabbing the bulk of the sales, the compact-car segment is now a wide open field.

John W. Mendel, Honda’s top American sales executive, said the Japanese carmaker was confident that its small cars would meet the challenge from the latest American models. “Better products from our competitors?” said Mr. Mendel. “That’s a good thing for the U.S. marketplace, but the Civic remains the trendsetter.”

In the past, Detroit automakers neglected small cars because they could not make money on them. That has changed for several reasons. Labor costs are lower since the U.A.W. agreed to concessions on health care for retirees and a 50 percent wage reduction for new workers. G.M. and Ford are also spreading the development costs of compact and subcompact cars across their global divisions in North America, Europe and Asia.

Ford is building variations of its new Focus at factories across the world. The car’s basic design and engineering, however, was done in Europe, where consumers have long appreciated the value, fuel efficiency and performance of smaller models. “The way we work now is to use the teams that know the markets the best,” said Derrick M. Kuzak, Ford’s global product chief.

The companies still earn far bigger profits on trucks and S.U.V.’s. But small cars are now commanding better prices in the showroom. A year ago, G.M.’s previous small sedan, the Chevrolet Cobalt, sold for an average price of $18,400, according to TrueCar.com. Last month, however, the typical Cruze sold for $20,600.

Detroit executives are aware they still have a lot to prove. Mr. Reuss cringes when reminded of some of G.M.’s subpar products of the past, and vows never to repeat those mistakes. “Our company has been changed forever,” he said. “We’ve got a window to get it right this time.”

He knew G.M. was on the right track when he parked one of the first new Cruzes off the assembly line at a supermarket in suburban Detroit, and a store employee rushed over to check it out. “She said, ‘I can’t believe Chevrolet is building a car this size that’s this good,’ ” Mr. Reuss said.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/30/business/economy/30auto.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Global Business Tagged With: , ,

Green Column: Barring Cars to Clear the Air

May 8, 2011 by Leave a Comment

But for some European drivers, that pastime could be coming to an end where the authorities want to bar the most polluting vehicles.

“The future in city centers belongs to small cars and electric vehicles,” Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, the French minister for ecology and transport, told a French newspaper, Le Parisien, last month.

Ms. Kosciusko-Morizet was announcing plans for eight of the largest French cities, including Paris and Nice, to restrict or bar access by passenger cars made before 1997, when stricter emissions standards took effect in Europe.

The French plan could affect millions of car owners who would face fines if they violated the rules. Owners of motorbikes, vans and heavy goods vehicles also would need to comply. Police cars, ambulances and fire trucks would be exempt.

The French plan still is undergoing a public consultation. But a three-year pilot project — designed to help France meet air quality standards set by the European Union and to cut the numbers of premature deaths — could get under way in some cities next year.

The French initiative is another example of so-called low emissions zones, areas in which some vehicles are barred or subject to extra charges.

Siim Kallas, the Union’s transport commissioner, said recently that the spread of these zones, combined with initiatives like support for electric vehicles and better public transport, should mean that some European cities will be entirely free of cars that run on gasoline or diesel by 2050.

The main goal of most low emissions zones is to reduce tiny particles that cause respiratory and cardiovascular illnesses and can carry cancer-causing compounds, and to reduce nitrogen dioxide that is associated with respiratory problems and allergies.

Reducing nitrogen oxides also helps limit the formation of ozone, which irritates the eyes and the nose and exacerbates asthma and other lung problems.

The zones may also reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, if they lead to more efficient use of vehicles to do the same jobs.

According to the French authorities, certain types of particulate matter have fallen 19 percent in London, 25 percent in Berlin and 40 percent in Stockholm since those cities introduced their low emissions zones.

In German cities, car owners can buy a windscreen sticker that is valid for zones in other parts of the country. The German system covers all vehicles except motorbikes. In Italy, there is a patchwork of systems for all vehicles that includes motorbikes. There are also exemptions available for classic cars in parts of Europe.

In France, cities would retain authority to set precise rules.

The zones in Sweden and the Netherlands, as well as a giant zone in London, restrict heavy-duty vehicles but not passenger cars. London and Stockholm also run charging systems for most vehicles, but those are mainly aimed at relieving congestion.

Officials at the European Commission, the Union’s executive body, are keeping an eye on the systems. The commission could propose common principles if the zones end up discriminating against certain operators or catch too many visiting drivers by surprise.

To help vehicle operators navigate the zones, the commission is helping to fund a Web site, lowemissionzones.eu.

Among the most frequent users of the site are truckers, coach drivers and motorists on vacation, according to Lucy Sadler, who runs a consulting firm that operates the site.

Ms. Sadler, who was the principal policy adviser on air quality for the Greater London Authority until 2005, said the zones were a major tool against pollutants that are particularly harmful to the very young and the elderly.

Even so, the authorities needed to be bold to set up such systems. “It’s never easy from a political point of view to tell people or companies to leave their vehicles in the garage,” said Jos Dings, the director of Transport Environment, an environmental group based in Brussels.

Environmental groups still have some concerns.

Michel Dubromel, a spokesman for the environmental group France Nature Environnement, said the French government should base the restrictions on how much fuel vehicles burn rather than the age of cars.

Mr. Dubromel also called for stricter rules on heavily polluting two-stroke motorcycle engines and for aid to drivers on low incomes so they could afford to convert their cars to comply with the new rules.

Another concern is whether the zones effectively contribute to limiting emissions of nitrogen dioxide, because new diesel cars tend to pollute more in use than in tests. Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, has said tests to measure the environmental friendliness of new cars should include stricter regulation of nitrogen dioxide emissions.

Among the groups that are most enthusiastic about the proliferation of low emissions zones is the electric vehicle industry, because the restrictions could be a major catalyst for development of the technology. But the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association, representing the biggest carmakers, has taken a more cautious view.

“Whether radical measures like bans really make sense is a complex question to answer,” said Sigrid de Vries, a spokeswoman for the association in Brussels.

Some low emissions zones could discourage innovation and hold back the most efficient solutions to auto emissions, she said.

Instead of promoting bans, the authorities should focus on helping the industry continue to improve the efficiency of internal combustion engines and other technologies and use computer systems to help improve traffic flows, she said.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/09/business/energy-environment/09green.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Global Business Tagged With: , ,