GM Reports 18.5% Sales Drop for June
GM is reporting sales drops for June; just how bad it is depends on what numbers you use. Their press release talks about deliveries, retail sales, sales, adjusted numbers, and unadjusted numbers. Like Automotive News , we prefer using numbers that aren't adjusted for "sales days," so GM's sales for June were down 18.5 percent from the previous year. For the first half of the year, they were down 16.5 percent from 2007. If you can believe it, car sales were down e ver more than light trucks (21.1 percent vs. 16 percent, unadjusted). Individual car models had increases, some large, that were more than balanced out by other car models having decreases.So, what about the Hail Mary 72-Hour-No-Make-That-10-Day 0 Percent Financing sale? "The 72 Hour Sale at the end of June was targeted at the 2008 vehicles left in inventory. Combined full-size pickup and utility inventory is down about 124,000 vehicles compared with June a year ago. The sale helped rebalance inventory to a stronger car mix. There were about 238,000 cars and 550,000 trucks in inventory at the end of June." Given the rate trucks are selling, a two-to-one ratio of trucks to cars still doesn't sound that promising. July's sales numbers will tell that story.
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hitman1970- unfortunately the Corsa would lose even more money than the Astra does. If they build the next version in North America we'll probably see it. Except for the missing aux jack you mentioned you can get a fairly nicely equipped Astra for the same price as the base Aura XE. Plus the Astra is a nicer finished car. The Aura EPA MPG is 2 less than the Astra but it's probably more in real life because the Aura likely only achieves it's fuel mileage because the auto trans is "tuned" for economy, with the typical reluctant downshifts. The Astra is also available with ESC with the 4 (it's only available with the V6 for the Aura) and a manual trans. Personally I think a low torque automatic transmission car is the worst experience one can have driving.
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It seems GM thinks total '08 sales will be off by 15%. That's 600K vehicles. GM North America will be down from 5.6 million vehicles in '02 to 3.6 million vehicles in '08. Nasty slide. Most vehicles lines look very weak. For instance, the important large crossovers (Acadia, Outlook, Enclave) sold only 8800 versus Toyota 15400 for Highlander + Sienna.
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Reuters - Top 20 Selling Vehicles Jan - Jun 2008 RANK VEHICLE 2008 2007 '07 RANK %Chng 1 Ford F-Series 274,713 355,438 1 -22.7 2 Toyota Camry 239,881 240,530 3 -0.3 3 Chevy Silverad 231,320 310,896 2 -25.6 4 Honda Accord 205,862 182,346 6 +12.9 5 Honda Civic 204,961 173,800 8 +17.9 6 Toyota Corolla 194,488 202,221 4 -3.8 7 Nissan Altima 158,006 140,253 9 +12.7 8 Chevy Impala 138,952 180,390 7 -23.0 9 Dodge Ram 128,944 185,257 5 -30.4 10 Ford Focus 123,449 96,732 15 +27.6 11 Chevy Cobalt 114,250 96,437 14 +18.5 12 Honda CR-V 104,811 104,179 11 +0.6 13 Ford Escape 92,065 92,205 17 -0.2 14 Toyota Prius 91,440 94,503 16 -3.2 15 Chevy Malibu 88,575 67,499 26 +31.2 16 Ford Fusion 87,923 78,695 20 +11.7 17 GM Pontiac G6 85,682 69,955 28 +22.5 18 GMC Sierra 83,174 99,293 12 -16.2 19 Toyota Tundra 76,516 82,516 23 -7.3 20 Chrysl Caravan 75,805 103,562 10 -26.8
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Hmm... Cadillac just announced the BLS is going to be offered with a more than 7000 Euro discount in the Netherlands. A new BLS 2.0 Turbo Business used to cost EUR 35790, but from now on that will be EUR 28590. I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact they've sold a whole 51 of them this year-to-date, including the wagon and 75 last year in total, which is way less than Porsche 911s in spite of heavy taxes. Obviously the total market is not that big (population 16 MM people --> about 500000 new cars/year) but (intended) competitors like the 3 series, A4 and C-Class all manage 5-10K a year. Anyway, what is more interesting, the Saab 9-3 with the same engine (in other words, the same car with a different grill) still costs EUR36490, while the Opel Vectra with that engine (The same chassis) is also slightly more expensive while being the classic 'budget brand' if you don't count the Daevrolets GM is selling here. I wonder what it does with sales of those two, although the Vectra is about to be replaced and Saab and Cadillac have two totally different brand images in Europe, apart from both being subpar premium brands...
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