Reuters is reporting some bad news. Auto sales are near a 27-year low for the month of January. The numbers (make sure small children or people sensitive to strong images of corporate failure are not looking):
Ford: 40% drop in January domestic sales, capping 10 months of declines of more than 10%
Toyota: 34% drop for US sales
Nissan: 30% for US sales
Shockingly, on the news that rental car agencies were sharply cutting back on purchases, Chrysler expected sales to be off more than 35%. Why did I say “shockingly” (in a sarcastic manner)? Well, that’s to be expected when the only people who buy your cars are rental agencies. I mentioned a while back that the Dodge Avenger and Chrysler Sebring twins are pretty much the archetype of a car so foul that only rental car agencies will buy them. The economy is so bad the agencies are balking.
If any Chrysler execs are reading this (which, trust me, they aren’t for several reasons, one of which is that they are allergic to good advice), you might want to consider making cars that don’t look like rejected props from Mel Brooks’ Spaceballs.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Hug your sad Salesperson: Sales off sharply for January
Friday, January 23, 2009
On Top of the Pile: Toyota is now world’s largest automaker.
[insert: "I for one welcome our new ____ overlords" meme here ...]
I can’t believe I didn’t post to mention this. It’s pretty simple. GM, the world’s largest carmaker since the 1930s, was outsold in 2008. GM sold 8.35 million vehicles to Toyota’s 8.97 million.
It’s not surprising in the least. Toyota has been expected to pull ahead of GM for a long time, considering that GM has subsisted for at least 50 years on lazy and regressive business practices, marketing flops, and convincing Americans to buy huge cars and trucks. Toyota, meanwhile, has a business model that is widely emulated in the corporate world. And they sell darn good cars. (OK, they’re a little boring, but the Corolla is the best selling car nameplate in history, and they sell most of their cars like hotcakes. Or at least they did before the economy went in the drink.)
(Source: New York Times)
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