I love funny little vans. I don't care who knows it. Funny little vans took me to India, and I think they could be key to getting more young people interested in cars. And it looks like I'm not alone, because a funny little van was, globally, GM's best selling vehicle.
I thought there were a couple of interesting items worth pointing out in the nitty-gritty of today's stellar 16% sales increase from Ford. Here they are in no particular order:
GM August sales were down 20.2%, worse than the punditocracy expected.
Hyundai August sales hotter than kimchee, up an amazing 47%! [ABC News]
Despite Cash for Clunkers, Chrysler will report craptastically lower August sales, down 15%. [WSJ]
Ford August Cash-for-Clunkers-inflated sales were up 17%, lower than expected street numbers of up 39%.
Moments ago, Ford reported that thanks to Cash For Clunkers, July sales were 158,838, up 2.3% versus the same month last year. It's their first year-to-year sales increase since 2007.
As the Muscle Car Wars continue, GM's struggling to meet demand for the new Chevy Camaro, with some buyers paying heavy premiums on sticker prices. Now GM even thinks it may catch Ford's new 2010 Mustang in monthly sales.
Toyota sees light at end of tunnel, will boost U.S. production. Silly automaker. [AutoNews]
Parsing the sales numbers from May, the boys at Cars.com put together this month's list of the top ten best selling cars. They found lower gas prices increase U.S. sales of trucks and SUVs. America! Truck yeah!
GM February sales down an insane 52.9%. [CNBC]
Ford February sales -48.4% vs. -42% analyst expectations. [CNBC]
As GM asks for $16 billion more in U.S. federal assistance, their most contentious point is bankruptcy's a bad idea. We disagree. However, here's their argument from their just-revealed viability plan.
GM sales were down 50.8% adjusted per sales day. GM January total car sales of 43,943 were off 58% and total truck sales (including crossovers) were down 42% compared with a year ago. Yikes!
Toyota reported January, 2009 sales of 117,287 vehicles, a decrease of 34.4% from last January. Even the new Venza sold only a mere 1,394 units in January.
Chrysler sales for December, 2008 were down 53% compared with December, 2007. Although pickup sales were up 10%, the automaker finished the month with 397,659 units on hand, a 115-day supply of inventory.
We spent the night reading the the not-so-Big Three's business plans presented yesterday to Congress and after we graded them below, we've one huge question. Given the Carpocalypse, what's with the overwhelmingly optimistic sales projections for the next three years?
We just saw the following chart of Top 10 retail vehicle sales for October, 2008 showing the Ford F-150 and Chevy Silverado overtaking the Toyota Camry and Corolla. Looks like that drop in gas prices to under $2 per gallon due to a lack of economic growth have already made us forget about the summer pains of high gas…
Sales results released yesterday confirmed October was another month of dismal vehicle sales in the U.S. market. Of the top players, General Motors fared worst, seeing sales plunge 45.4% from the same month a year earlier. Chrysler was down 34.9%, while Ford was down 29.2%. Of the import "big three," Nissan dropped…
One of the behemoths of the global heavy trucking industry, Volvo Trucks, has reported a truly shocking decline in sales for the third quarter of this year. Volvo claims a 99.7% reduction in demand compared to the same period a year ago. That means orders went from 41,970 trucks in the third quarter of 2007 to just…
