New Car Sales: September Surprise?

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

September Light Vehicle sales, which will be out on Monday, could rise to levels not seen since April, analysts surveyed by Bloomberg reckon. The consensus average stands at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 12.8 million units. The people who have the real time sales data even think it’s a bit higher: Jessica Caldwell of Edmunds figures 12.9 million SAAR, Jesse Toprak of Truecar even expects 13.1 million. And guess who saved the American bacon? The Japanese.

The American factories of Toyota and Honda are running at full tilt. Toyota already pre-announced that it has turned the corner and expects to reverse monthly U.S. sales declines next month. Honda is running two Ohio plants on overtime shifts.

“The big story this month was better inventory and favorable pricing” for consumers, said Jessica Caldwell of Edmunds. This means that incentives are back up. It will be a hot fall and winter: From my talks with Japanese manufacturers I expect aggressive sales campaigns well into the next year to make up for lost volume. It will be a tough battle for American manufacturers that already had piles of cash on the hoods of their cars when supply was tight. It will be an even tougher battle for GM, which already was leading in incentive spending.

For September, analysts still expect minus signs in front of the growth rates of Toyota and Honda, which is strongly expected to change in October.

Analyst GMFord Chrysler SAARPatrick Archambault (Goldman Sachs)15.0%-1.3%13.0%12.4George Magliano (IHS Automotive)NA NA NA12.4Chris Ceraso (Credit Suisse)14.0%4.0%16.0%12.6Peter Nesvold (Jefferies)24.0%1.6% NA12.7Himanshu Patel (JPMorgan) NA NA NA12.8Brian Johnson (Barclays)17.0%7.0%25.0%12.8Seth Weber (RBC)21.0%8.0%24.0%12.8Alan Baum (Baum & Associates) NA NA NA12.8Adam Jonas (Morgan Stanley)NA NA NA12.8Jessica Caldwell (Edmunds.com)19.0%11.0%23.0%12.9Itay Michaeli (Citigroup) NA NA NA12.9Rod Lache (Deutsche Bank)21.0%8.5%22.0%13.0Jeff Schuster (J.D. Power) NA NA NA13.0Jesse Toprak (TrueCar.com)21.0%8.5%20.0%13.1Average19.0%5.9%20.0%12.8

Once all the sales numbers are in, we will also announce the results of our monthly Grade The Analysts competition. The rules will remain the same as last month: We will grade on a combo of correct SAAR and correct calls on the Detroit 3, with severe punishment for those analysts who only give a SAAR number. With SAARs varying from 12.4 to 13.1 million, and with more analysts giving numbers for the Detroit 3, the race should become interesting.

Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

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  • Lilpoindexter Lilpoindexter on Oct 01, 2011

    My buds that still work at chrysler say they are going balls out to keep up with demand...yet everywhere around me the economy still sucks...what's going on?

  • AJ AJ on Oct 01, 2011

    When I moved to Indiana 12 years ago from briefly living in Cali, I recall thinking how the majority of cars on the road here were from the Big 3 (a lot of Pontiac's) which was just different. Now just last Wednesday, I had to run over to my Honda dealer for quick service with my daily driver Civic (and it's actually my third Civic I've owned). While there it was interesting to see that the new Civics now say built here in Indiana. Then while sitting at a stop light on my way back to the office I counted that there were seven other cars at the intersection. Two were Toyotas, two Hondas, one Kia and two Chryslers. I just found that interesting vs. 12 years ago.

    • Bonaire Bonaire on Oct 02, 2011

      I've been seeing "more" US-brand cars out there recently while car-counting. Maybe it's the new Fusions, Cruze and other models hitting the road due to the sales up-tick of US-made brands. I'm in the market for something new, but it's not urgent. Keeping my eye on the EREV market - either Volt or Ford C-Max Energi next year. (no real feelings for Fisker just yet) The Volt should make news this month for its big uptick in sales. Darn the cost, though - to get the technology, the initial cost is pretty high versus any econobox.

  • MaintenanceCosts Other sources seem to think that the "electric Highlander" will be built on TNGA and that the other 3-row will be on an all-new EV-specific platform. In that case, why bother building the first one at all?
  • THX1136 Two thoughts as I read through the article. 1) I really like the fins on this compared to the others. For me this is a jet while the others were propeller driven craft in appearance.2) The mention of the wider whitewalls brought to mind a vague memory. After the wider version fell out of favor I seem to remember that one could buy add-on wide whitewalls only that fit on top of the tire so the older look could be maintained. I remember they would look relatively okay until the add-on would start to ripple and bow out indicating their exact nature. Thanks for the write up, Corey. Looking forward to what's next.
  • Analoggrotto It's bad enough we have to read your endless Hyundai Kia Genesis shilling, we don't want to hear actually it too. We spend good money on speakers, headphones and amplifiers!
  • Redapple2 Worthy of a book
  • Pig_Iron This message is for Matthew Guy. I just want to say thank you for the photo article titled Tailgate Party: Ford Talks Truck Innovations. It was really interesting. I did not see on the home page and almost would have missed it. I think it should be posted like Corey's Cadillac series. 🙂
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