I know people like this, but most of them are either single, or married without children.

When children come along, they quickly move to the suburbs – even if it is an inner-ring suburb.

I do agree that the new-vehicle market has been artificially inflated over the past 6-7 years. There are so many players seeking a piece of the market pie that they must use incentives and fleet sales to stay afloat.

By the time this shakes out, I look for at least one domestic automaker to be gone, the remaining ones to shutter at least one brand each, and 1-2 foreign nameplates to simply pack up and leave, because it is no longer worth the cost of staying here.

By that measure, Chrysler is more efficient than Porsche. Ouch.

The income statement makes it clear that Toyota is consistently more efficient than Honda, because it produces higher margins. For a dollar in revenue, Toyota will generate more earnings from that dollar than can Honda.

Aside from having a large base of operations over which to amortize its fixed costs, Toyota can do that because it sells more high margin, high dollar cars. Unless you believe that the world will never have an economic recovery, it is a good thing for a mainstream auto manufacturer to have a product line that can stretch some of its parts and R&D into reaching a higher cost territory.

It’s great to have an umbrella shop when it’s raining, but it’s better to have something to sell on sunny days, which in this case are more frequent. Honda does a great job of targeting American middle-class consumers, but does a lousy job of serving the upper-middle as has Lexus.

Without revamping Acura, it’s pretty obvious who isn’t destined to more profitable in North America over the long run. Lexus may take a hit for now, but when the recovery comes, they will be better able to exploit it.

Except, that’s not so. I was up at the Toyota dealer about three months ago and they had 30 Priuses available and were dealin’. Prius sales have been rather cyclic. It strikes me as likely that it would require a proportionately bigger investment to increase capacity (not just more vehicle capacity, but also more HSD device capacity and more battery capacity), so a more conservative approach is not too surprising.

Honda has 9 Honda (including the ultra-rare S2000) and 5 Acuras for a total of 14 vehicles.

Toyota sold about 193k vehicles in the US in June compared to 143k for Honda. 193k/24 = just over 8k units/model. 143k/14 = over 10k units/model.

By this measure, Honda is the more efficient automaker.

I don’t think anybody’s losing perspective here but Toyota’s troubles in recent months come from the market segments that make up the 500K units more they are selling. Combine this with the differences in corporate ethos between Toyota and Honda, and that’s why sentiments are running as they are.

TSX sales are up about 300 units for January-June. It’s a low volume car, not really consequential for Honda’s sales. In Acura’s stable, the MDX and TL still outsell it. To put things in perspective, Honda sells more Ridgelines than Acura sells TSX’s.

If you step back and look at these guys, you can see what’s going on. For Honda, the Accord and Civic are, as usual, monster hits. The CR-V is also a class leader, handily outselling the RAV 4

The Fit sells reasonably well, but the attention it gets is a bit excessive, in my opinion. The sales increase disguises the fact that Honda had supply constraints during 2007 that limited their ability to build enough of these last year. The Yaris outsells the Fit by more than 1.5:1.

All of the above are probably going to sell above 100,000 vehicles for the year. The Civic and Accord should surpass 400,000, which are just massive numbers.

Between them, Honda and Toyota pretty much own the midsized sedan, compact sedan, subcompact and small crossover market.

Toyota has the same comparable hits — Corolla, Camry, Yaris and RAV4, plus it has another hit in the form of the Prius.

Lexus may be sliding, but it still dominates Acura by a wide margin, plus the Highlander and Sienna move more than 100,000 per year. Where Toyota is getting hurt is with the sluggishness of Scion (only the Xb is a minor hit), and a large lineup of mediocre sellers, most of which are SUV’s.

To keep things in perspective, Toyota sold more than half a million more vehicles between January and June than Honda did (1.24 million for Toyota, 720,000 for Honda.)

Toyota is still a much larger company than Honda, this hasn’t really changed. Honda has a smaller lineup, so when we talk about the dead weight that each of them carries, Honda has fewer of those models to talk about.

Why are we making excuses for Toyota? Chevrolet had similar supply issues when the Malibu was introduced and they were raked over the coals for failing to have enough cars ready at launch.

Toyota has been building this generation Prius for four years. Four years it’s been a runaway success where you can not buy one without having to be placed on a waiting list and they can’t put two and two together and sacrifice a plant that can be quickly converted (so I’m told) to ramp up production in short (as in less than four years) notice?

I’m disappointed that Toyota didn’t adjust to this four year sales trend, and I’m doubly disappointed that the B & B is letting Toyota slide with this.

Hmmm, many of the younger people I know are surprisingly uninterested in cars and prefer to live in more urban areas in part so that they don’t have to deal with the expense and hassle of car ownership. To me this attitude seems alien, but skyrocketing costs are having an effect. If fuel costs keep marching up then we may indeed see new social and buying patterns emerge. Once upon a time people thought that the market for horse-drawn buggies was certain to recover.

If the new TSX is already out, then it accounted for some of Honda’s success.

I would say you have this one backwards…

Honda is an exception, because of its emphasis on reliability for the mid-market and on four-cylinder engines. But that’s a lineup that will tend to overperform during periods like this, but underperform over the long run.

In the long run, I’d rather be Toyota. It is well positioned for profitability when the higher dollar vehicles are back in demand. Lexus will generate plenty of profits, while the trucks will keep Detroit on the run and gobble up share. They are better prepared than anyone to fight a multi-front war.

In the short run, I’d rather be in Honda’s position, but I’d be retooling for the future. If the next TL is anything like the TSX that I read about here, the inevitable economic recovery is not going to be kind to Acura.

Sounds like the attitude of a generation or two ago, but what would it take to adjust the attitude of the ‘I want it now so I need it now’ generation? I think they’d have to go though the experience of barely coming up with just necessities for an extended period. People don’t need cable or eating out or more than a pair of shoes, etc.

But there is hope. Starbucks is closing 600 stores so maybe we’ve got a start. I knew they had too many stores when they opened one in the crappy little Indiana town I live near. Target closed a small store here a couple of years ago because we didn’t measure up to their desired demographic. I’ll keep an eye on the Starbucks joint.

This time last year, all Scion really had for sale was the tC. The redesigned (read: fatter, thirstier) xB had just come out in May and certainly hadn’t caught on yet, and the xD didn’t even hit shores until August. Classic xB’s were long gone, though there were xA’s to be had…not that anybody wanted one.

So this is down from a point where only 1/3 of the cars were even for sale.

Ouch.

http://pressroom.toyota.com/Releases/View?id=TYT2008070177210

Rich people who don’t car if gas is $4 a gallon or $14.

Has anyone seen Jag/Land Rover sales yet, since Ford doesn’t supply them anymore?

Yes, as much as I actually want GM and Ford (Chrysler, not so much) to survive, I fully recognize that Silverados and F150s improved with billions of dollars in order to beat the Toyota Tundra represent a Pyrrhic victory, at best, for Detroit.

Basically, they expected similar things from Honda on the Civic and 4-cyl Accord and from Toyota on the Corolla and 4-cyl Camry.

The whole industry is declining becuase:
* Small cars are in demand, but companies are only structurally set up to produce so many, so there are lean inventories
* The real transaction price of small cars is up. This has scared off some would-be buyers (first-timers, econo shoppers).
* You couldn’t give someone a full-size truck or SUV right now.
* Consumer sentiment sucks.

Toyota’s sales are certainly reflective of a supply problem – but so are Ford’s or Honda’s. Honda could have probably been up 5-7% instead of 1% if all their Pilot/Ridgeline/Element and some Odyssey capacity were dedicated to Civic, Fit and Accord production. Ford’s sales would have looked better if they had more 4-cyl Escapes, 4-cyl Fusions and Focii available. On a recent visit to see the Flex, I was told that about 1/4 of their Focus sales were for models yet to be delivered or orders placed by customers because they lack the correct content mix.

I would bet it’s similar at Toyota and Honda. May cleared out everything. Now, people are left picking through the scraps.

However, this was not ALL a supply issue. A 21.4% drop is more significant than just that.