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January Sales Snapshot: Selected Small Hatchbacks
by
Edward Niedermeyer
(IC: employee)
Published: February 8th, 2010
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As we’ve noted before, there are lots of ways to skin a segment. Here’s one of them. Notice that four of the top five sellers here are also available as sedans, the Honda Fit being the only exception. Interestingly, compact hatches tend to carry a premium over their sedan variants.
Edward Niedermeyer
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Published February 8th, 2010 4:55 PM
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I admit it. I used to despise hatchbacks. I thought they were cheap and crude. I think I was just following the "stereotypical" hatchback nonsense. Now that I've seen all the things I can't do with my sedan, a hatch or wagon is a serious thought for my next vehicle purchase. Also, I've always loved wagons, but never hatches. I can't figure it out.
Never have understood why in North America a hatch costs more than a sedan? More steel goes into a sedan so you'd think it'd be the one that costs more? Nope. In Europe it's the hatch version which are cheapest... Can anyone actually tell me which one costs less to build? And talking of 'cost to build', how much money are Hyundai making on the Accent? I mean to build a car, ship it across the Pacific and then sell it for less than $10k is simply amazing.
We love our 2008 SX4. Zero defects. Great in the snow this week.
Interesting that sales of Versa are up with the introduction of the Cube, and same for Rio with the Soul. World's cheapest halo cars? The Fit was the "it" car in this segment last year, now I think Soul and Rio have filled that role, leading to Fit's decline. The fact that the Fit bears a passing resemblance to the Aveo probably isn't helping. Crunched the numbers just for fun, totals for the segment are 31,253 for Jan 2010 vs. 26,858 last year, an increase of 16.4 percent.