By Richard Chen
July 1, 2008 -
Spaghettification as named by Stephen Hawking is the extreme stretching of objects into its components by a extreme gravity field, to the point of becoming but a thin strand of elementary particles. As forecast by Chrysler plant cutback and closing yesterday, the maker most dependent on minivan and truck sales is definitely getting the stretch this June, with sales down 36 percent (unadjusted). Surprisingly, car sales dropped even further, down a whopping 49 percent. Grand Caravan sales are a bit of bright spot: up 52 percent. But GC sales are still down 27 percent year-to-date, warranting the closure of the St. Louis plant.. Not surprisingly, the outgoing Ram is down 48 percent, The Caliber and Compass took hits of 44 percent and 39 percent respectively, the complete opposite of just about every other manufacturer's small car lineup. The press release contained paragraphs of spin, announcing that the $2.99/gallon fuel promotion will continue through the end of the month. Frankly, there's no escaping this gravitational sinkhole.
Click here for Chrysler's Press Release, which uses sales adjusted numbers.
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POWERED
July 1st, 2008 at 4:19 pm
Are they ever going to tell us their plan??? All they tell us is what their plan is NOT (chapter 11, strip-n-flip, etc.).
July 1st, 2008 at 4:20 pm
they havnt made a decent car in… um… ever. Well except maybe the 50’s DeSoto’s.
July 1st, 2008 at 4:20 pm
It’s small consolation to Chrysler, but you have a typo in your article: Grand Caravan sales were UP 52%.
July 1st, 2008 at 4:23 pm
The Jeep Patriot seems to be the one standout with a significant sales boost.
The Sprinter seems to be holding up as well.
July 1st, 2008 at 4:27 pm
Chrysler is doomed! IF they can’t even make their cars sell in this car market than what hope is there for them. Are they hiding some revolutionary small car that they can make a profit and a big profit on for a big unvailing in the next month. All their sales can do is get worse as the price of gas goes up and the car market contracts.
July 1st, 2008 at 4:29 pm
Go Sprinter!
As crazy as it sounds, why don’t they offer a Sprinter with improved NVH (just some added padding with a sticky side) and an improved interior?
They’d have a segment busting vehicle that could seat 10 comfortably and with the diesel get better mileage than all the Lambda’s!
Heck, let the dealers put wall-to-wall carpeting in them and sell them as small apartments - something! Get creative here people and sell something!
July 1st, 2008 at 4:30 pm
259% increase in Viper sales!
July 1st, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Alex Rodriguez:
It’s small consolation to Chrysler, but you have a typo in your article: Grand Caravan sales were UP 52%.
True dat. Text amended.
July 1st, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Duh!
July 1st, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Year-to-date, Chrysler’s lead over Honda is only about 60,000 cars. And that’s including all its trucks and minivans.
July 1st, 2008 at 4:45 pm
The thing that concerns me in the numbers is that the small cars did squat in June, save for Patriot.
Is it that they are saving their marketing $$ for the fall when the refreshed models come out? I sure don’t see any $$ being spent to market to their small cars now.
July 1st, 2008 at 4:55 pm
These figures bring to mind the sales of Studebaker-Packard in 1956…a literal death spiral.
History CAN repeat itself.
July 1st, 2008 at 5:28 pm
Whoa! The 300 sedan sold fewer units than the Sebring…and the longer-in-the-tooth PT Cruiser.
July 1st, 2008 at 5:38 pm
“The Black Hole.” I saw that movie!
Once in the theatres when I was a kid. Again more recently around 2002, I think. Cool ship. But I remember thinking that the movie was better the first time I saw it.
Oops..I wonder what that means for Chrysler?
July 1st, 2008 at 5:53 pm
How in he world did the Windsor, Ontario plant dodge this bullet? (oh yeah, that’s right, Canadian gun control)
July 1st, 2008 at 5:59 pm
Minor note: The attached PDF uses unadjusted numbers. That is, Sebring sales were 5,111, almost exactly half of the 10,249 sales last year, and they report a 50% decrease. The other numbers follow the same pattern.
July 1st, 2008 at 6:29 pm
Today I had the “pleasure” of riding in a colleagues rental car while her own whip - an Accord coupe - is in the body shop. The rental was a Caliber.
I’d read all the press about what a cheap, disappointing car this was. But actually experiencing it live had me practically rooting for ChryCo to declare C11 and/or just go away.
Incredibly cheap plastics with bad fit/finish. Ridiculously loud drivetrain that sounded almost like a diesel box truck. The “thunk” sound when closing a door was anything but confidence inspiring. I can’t even imagine what kind of shape one of these things will be in by the time they hit 60K miles.
July 1st, 2008 at 7:54 pm
Spaghettification
What a great word.
July 1st, 2008 at 8:37 pm
They need a small sedan. The Caliber would be selling like the Focus and Cobalt if it had a trunk.
July 1st, 2008 at 8:44 pm
Ouch! 36%, what is even worse is they have nothing new that is fuel efficient!!
No Prius or Corolla fighter, No Civic or Fit fighter, No Versa fighter, No Focus fighter…..wait they have the new all powerful Hemi Challenger and RAM!! LOL
July 1st, 2008 at 9:22 pm
MikeInCanada- government run healthcare
July 1st, 2008 at 11:51 pm
Maybe they should bring back the original 1995 Neon. It would probably sell better than the craptacular Caliber, which would be rather ironic, considering that the Caliber is nothing more than a really low-quality, really ugly Neon.
Seriously, Chrysler really outdid themselves in sourcing to a supplier that made the Caliber’s interior plastics substantially worse than the car it replaced.