Europe’s best-selling cars are impacted disproportionately. Eight out of ten suffered double-digit percentage losses. Only one car managed a slight increase in May.

 Europe’s Top 10 Models, May 2012

According to data released by Yato Dynamics, Volkswagen’s Golf (-13.5%), and Ford’s Fiesta (12.4%) retain their first and second places, despite double digit losses. The only gainer is the Renault Megane. Up 2.6%, it managed a place in the Top 10.

Outside the Top Ten, Toyota Yaris, Audi A6 and Mercedes B-Class recorded significant increases in sales during May. New models such as the Volkswagen Up, Audi Q3 and Peugeot 208 also had solid sales last month.

The European car market – if taken together, the world’s second largest behind China and before the U.S. – continues its slow drift to the bottom. Sales in May were down by 8.7 percent in the EU. This is the eighth month in a row that sales are in minus territory. Five months into the year, the market is down 7.7 percent.

18 out of 26 EU countries are down, now including all volume markets  except the U.K. Greece leads the list of laggards  with sales down 47.3 percent. However, the crisis is no longer a southern affair. Second worst country in terms of sales is Finland.

Manufacturer-wise, all  large European manufacturers are down, led by PSA (-19.5 percent), Renault ( – 13.1 percent), Ford (-12.8 percent) and Fiat (-12.6 percent).

The GM Group is down 8.4 percent.  Losses at Opel (-12.3 percent) are offset by a 16.2 percent gain at Chevrolet.

In May, a total of 13 GM cars are listed as imported from the U.S. Following  Detroit logic, which postulates that a market must be closed if American cars don’t sell , complaints at the WTO should be imminent.

As predicted yesterday, Volkswagen’s sales are down in Europe. They are down  5.7 percent in May, they are down 2.4 percent January through May. Volkswagen’s data department lists sales as unchanged in May, and up by 1.3 percent January through May. Must be a different Europe.

Data are available here as PDF and here as Excel file.

If you read Volkswagen’s global sales report for May, you get the impression that this was yet another great month. Global sales are up  7.8 percent in May. Things don’t look so rosy when you analyze the numbers a bit further.

As in last month, the blue numbers are calculated from archival data, the black numbers are as reported by Volkswagen AG. We have to do it this way, because Volkswagen does not deliver monthly data, except for the total global sales.

We see that growth in Europe came to a halt. This is Europe as defined by Volkswagen. We won’t be surprised  if Europe as defined as the EU will carry a minus when ACEA reports the numbers in a few days. Germany is down 1.7 percent. Western Europe ex Germany is down  8.1 percent. Eastern Europe, up 22.3 percent, is the only European bright spot.

“We continue to focus very closely on the growing uncertainties in the eurozone”,Volkswagen Group sales chief Christian Klingler said today. With approximately half of Volkswagen’s global business in Europe, and with South American sputtering, Volkswagen relies mostly on China and to a lesser degree on the U.S.A. for growth.

We have to rely on data reported by Reuters on that (not that we would distrust anything from Reuters crack China reporter Fang Yan), and we cannot regale you with the usual minutiae. Why? CAAM’s monthly press release is long on words, but devoid of any hard numbers. I guess you had to be there. We will probably get more on Monday.

Speaking of the press release, it does not sound happy, despite the big increase:

“Commercial vehicle sales continued to decline; own brand sales continue to decline; operating pressure of the first five months of key enterprises has increased, including receivables, liquidity, financial expenses, interest expense and so on.”

In other words, everything was bad except sales.

The day before, the secretary general of the China Passenger Car Association complained about “inventories that had already reached worrisome sizes by the end of May.” Dealers in China are sitting on two months of supply on the average, and their gross margin is down to 1 percent.

Oh, and what CAAM reports are “deliveries,” i.e. sales to dealers, not to customers.

In May, 289,977 passenger vehicles were newly registered in Germany, reflecting a loss of 4.8 percent compared to May 2011. This according to registration data released by Germany’s  Kraftfahrtbundesamt.

Most distressing: Buyers of compact and medium sized cars, the bread and butter of the industry, show increased reluctance towards a new car. Porsche (+12.3 percent) and Audi (+5.8 percent) still grew, Mercedes is flat compared to May 2011.

Volkswagen took a 6.9 percent hit in May and now is up only 0.6 percent in the first 5 months. GM’s Opel is down 11 percent, Ford is down 7.5 percent.

Honda, Toyota and Subaru look downright healthy, but only when compared to a tsunami-affected May. This base effect was unable to help Mazda, Mitsubishi, and Nissan, all with double digit losses

The drop in Germany bodes ill for the European market, data for which to be released mid-month. Europe’s largest car market Germany had buffered some of the falls elsewhere. With Germany in minus territory, ACEA’s May numbers are expected to be gruesome, especially for the volume makers.

This is the list of America’s best-selling cars and trucks of may and year-to-date.

The analysts polled by Bloomberg should wear a bullet-proof vest and avoid dark alleys for a while. To a woman and a man, the analysts were too exuberant, guessing way too high for May. Despite a respectable 13 percent gain, the market came in below the expectations created by analyst predictions, which sent car stocks broadly lower yesterday.

Today, the wayward soothsayers receive their just punishment.

The winner of May’s Grade The Analysts is Chris Ceraso of Credit Suisse. In the preceding months , Chris had ranked at the bottom of the field of contestants who had a fair chance of winning. Only the ones who deliver a prediction for the SAAR  AND the Detroit 3 can win this game.

In May, Chris performed with Swiss consistency, missing the mark by nearly 13 percent. He won, because the other contestants finished much worse.

In second place is Jesse Toprak of TrueCar, defending the honor of analysts who are in possession of strategically important real-time transaction data. Nevertheless, Jesse aimed too high. In place three is Alec Gutierrez of Kelley Blue Book, who had set off a round of misguided enthusiasm by predicting a week ago that the market could be up by 30 percent .

GM up 11 percent. Ford up 13 percent. Chrysler up 30 percent. Nissan up 21 percent. Volkswagen up 28 percent. Toyota up a whopping 87 percent. A few months ago, these numbers would have set champagne corks and fireworks flying. Today, these numbers were greeted by a communal meh and by stocks of automakers going south.

People who only read headlines may think the sky is falling. “May auto sales disappoint; demand slows,” headlines Reuters.

The numbers are great, but not good enough for high expectations, caused by optimistic forecasts and exuberant analyst notes. If you don’t meet sky-high expectations, you get slaughtered.

Ironically, falling gas prices are fingered to dissuade people from buying cars. Swiss bank UBS says that higher fuel prices in the first quarter prompted consumers to swap older, less fuel-efficient models to lock in fuel savings.

Also, there is fear that the pent-up demand is not what it was said to be. Students of car crises know that steep falls are usually followed by a sudden pop until the market finds its new groove. The fear is that sales in the past months were the pop, and that we are heading into the groove. Whatever the groove may be.

Table courtesy Automotive News [sub]

Domestic sales of new cars, trucks and buses in Japan rose 66.4% from a year earlier in May, data provided by Japanese industry groups show.

According to the Japan Automobile Dealers Association and the Japan Mini Vehicles Association, 394,950 vehicles (including mini vehicles and imports) were sold in May, up from 237,363 in May 2011.

The number is exaggerated because May 2011 sales had collapsed as an aftermath of the March 11 earthquake.  For the first five months, total sales in Japan are nearly 56 percent above those in the same period last year.

In the regular vehicle department, Toyota mounts a strong comeback wiith sales up 83 percent in the first five months. Imports of non-Japanese makers captured in “other”) are up nearly 27 percent through May. Imports of Japanese makers are in their respective results.

In the separately reported mini vehicle department, Honda roars back to life. Honda’s kei car sales more than tripled in May, and are up 137 percent in the first five months.

Comparing Japan’s Big Three, Toyota (including Daihatsu and Hino) is back with a vengeance, doubling group sales in May, and adding nearly four points of market share in the first five months of the year. Honda added a little share, while Nissan lost a bit.

When new car sales will be announced on June 1, sales could be up by 30 percent, thinks Kelley Blue Book. When sales approach 1.4 million units, or 14.2 million seasonally adjusted annual sales rate (SAAR) in May, Kelley expects GM and Ford to underperform the market, while Toyota could nearly double its sales and surpass Ford in market share.

These projections are based on real time sales data, but they remain projections until the real and hopefully true data come in. One of the reasons for the big jump are two additional selling days in May, and a strong Memorial day weekend.

Sales and market share projections, May 2012, Kelley Blue Book

Toyota and Honda are expected to be up strongly. In May last year, inventory shortages from the earthquake in Japan became a factor. In May 2011, Toyota was down 33 percent, Honda 23 percent. Both are back with a vengeance. Kelley sees Toyota nearly double its May 2011 sales, and expects Honda sales to rise by more than 50 percent.

While GM and Ford are expected to underperform the market with a sales gain around 10 percent, Chrysler is seen continuing its race to the top with a plus of nearly 40 percent.

General Motors, Ford and (surprise) Hyundai are expected to lose market share. Toyota is seen gaining 5 percent of share.