Good story in the Guardian, out of Great Britain, reporting VW will overtake Toyota as the number one auto builder in the world in 2009 - Toyota took the spot from 80-year reigning champion GM just last year.
Looking at the nature of VW’s rise (government-funded builds that ignored downturn in economy) and Toyota’s downturn (slowdowns in the U.S. and in Japan), there may be room for GM to best both VW and Toyota in the next few years. more…
Chrysler Group LLC announced last week during a day-long product plan presser, a slew of new car and small CUV programs - an attempt to address the company’s over-reliance on light truck sales (which current account for 76% of the group’s deliveries) as the market moves to smaller vehicles.
But if the increase in car offerings is an acknowledgement of current realities, some of Chrysler’s recent decisions have a distinctly retro air to them.
Among the vehicles announced last week were a compact sedan (MY ‘13) to be built in NA, and a Fiat-built import B-Car (MY ‘14), both on Fiat platforms. Interestingly, Chrysler Group intends to sell the new vehicles as both Dodges and Chryslers, flying in the face of the company’s year-old announcement that they would move away from creating dual-badged vehicles.
Reportedly, more…
With stocks stuck below the 2 million mark, the question arises – are U.S. companies building enough vehicles to support a sales turn around?
October finished with light vehicle inventories of 1.89 million units - up more than 13.4% from last month due in part to NA manufacturers’ more aggressive fourth quarter production plans. And with daily sales for the month below 30,000 units, auto stocks convert into what looks like a 63 days’ supply.
Subscribers to WardsAuto.com Premium link to October inventory data. Non-subscribers may view summary table here
But is that enough to support a sales recovery or is the lack of cars standing in the way of higher sales rates?
While a 60 days’ supply has long been cited as the indicator of a healthy industry, some analysts think the number should be lower. But that argument is more relevant when sales rates are higher. At the current recession-level sales rates, days’ supply is less meaningful – as the lack of cars on lots limits walk off sales.
Subscribers to WardsAuto.com Premium see latest sales data. Non-subscribers view summary data.
Using a 45 days’ supply as the bare minimum needed to support any sales rate, the current inventories could only support a 42,000 DSR, a rate slightly lower than the industry averaged during Summer 2008’s gas-price sales downturn. more…
Early thoughts -
On the anniversary of the month the bottom fell out of the economy and the industry, automakers set their sites on at least equaling last year’s (at the time) decades’ low LV sales - a sign of how bad things have gone in the past 12 months.
Subscribers to WardsAuto.com Premium link to the latest sales data here. Non-subscribers view summary data here:
But even with those low expectaions, companies struggled to hit a positive note in October.
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