#Sales

The jury’s out on how long we can expect the Fiat brand to linger — on life support — in the North American market, but the coming model year will see an improvement to one Fiat model. A model that hasn’t performed nearly as well as many would have thought.

For 2020, a crossover sharing its underpinnings and drivetrain with the far more popular Jeep Renegade amps up its looks in a bid to get noticed.

Bad product decisions cost auto manufacturers money, yet history provides us with many such examples. In today’s QOTD, we’re going to consider the best of the worst in poor automotive decision making. Present or past, anything goes in today’s inquiry. What vehicle makes you really wonder “what were they thinking?”

Fulfilling earlier promises that the company had hit a wall and might require several years to recover, Nissan reported a 70-percent decline in quarterly operating profit on Tuesday. It also pulled back its full-year operating profit forecast by 35 percent to 150 billion yen, representing the automaker’s worst annual performance in 11 years. The business now expects to see global retail volume somewhere around 5.2 million vehicles (down from estimates 5.5 million).

“We are revisiting all our assumptions, and as you can see that is why we revised down our forecast for sales volume for the full year,” incoming CFO Stephen Ma explained to Reuters after releasing its first-half results for 2019 (ending September 30th). That was swiftly followed by the announcement of an extraordinary shareholders meeting to decide on proposals for current directors leaving their positions ( Hiroto Saikawa, Yasuhiro Yamauchi, Thierry Bolloré) and the new director nominees.

China’s new vehicle market may not be as hot as it once was, but it’s still big. Very big. And pickup trucks, hungrily gobbled up by fleet operators, are a less volatile segment to do business in.

That’s why Ford’s mulling, for the first time, the idea of building Ford-branded trucks inside the country, rather than just importing them. However, before the automaker signs off on such an effort, China will have to do its part.

As selling compact passenger cars to Americans is no longer a responsibility borne by domestic automakers, Japan is left shouldering much of the burden in a segment it’s always excelled in. Western car sales are on the decline and, with the Detroit Three pulling out, Japan saw both a challenge and an opportunity.

The biggest players, Toyota and Honda, chose to expend every round in their magazines in the hopes of scoring hits. The Civic and Corolla diversified, upping their game and pulling further ahead of rivals like the Nissan Sentra and Mazda 3.

If capturing a bigger share of the pie while stabilizing their own softening sales was the goal, Honda and Toyota seem to have succeeded. With two months left in 2019, it’s increasingly looking like both models could finish 2019 with a sales increase.

Have we mentioned that Genesis needs a crossover? Surely we have, again and again. It’s still true, and the fledgling brand is well aware of it.

While parent Hyundai has managed to climb back from a recent sales slump with the addition of new product, its three-model premium brand faces a harder task: growing sales while simultaneously adopting a new dealer strategy and selling just passenger cars. With this burden on its shoulders, getting back to where it was two years ago — a year after its inception — is a victory… for now.

It wasn’t long ago that Hyundai, having rocketed out of the recession on the strength of efficient — and newly improved — product, canned its American CEO over declining sales and made Operation Crossover its primary focus.

The sales slump was almost entirely the product of American buyers’ cold-shouldering of traditional passenger cars, to which Hyundai brass saw a utility vehicle surge as the only remedy. Seems they were right, as Hyundai’s now sitting pretty — and there’s another crossover that’s yet to land.

You have to hand it to Nissan. Despite holding a continually declining share of new-car sales in the U.S., the automaker is sticking to its plan to firm up its financial footing.

That means holding the line on incentives and fleet sales — a practice it once revelled in back when the company pushed volume above all else.

It’s hardly unusual for an automaker to boost incentives in the fall, stimulating buyer interest in a bid to clear out current-model-year inventory, but market forces appear to have made Ford extra generous this October.

Starting late last week, the automaker is adding an extra $1,000 off most 2019 Mustangs, with extra financial grease heaped on EcoBoost models. It’s more cash than buyers got last year at this time, but then again, the Mustang isn’t exactly where it would like to be.

Infiniti’s largest passenger car is making like the brand’s presence in Western Europe and biting the dust. As the brand’s sales falter, the slow-selling Q70 sedan positioned at the top of the lineup has been discontinued, further reducing Infiniti’s product offerings.

The cancellation was heralded by last year’s axing of the seldom-seen hybrid model.

It’s just the news you needed to perk up a boring Monday. Buick’s Regal, which carries a variety of badges overseas, could see a facelift in the near future, leaked images reveal. Dutch website Autoweek.nl (via Motor Authority) has the pictures, with the decidedly brown model depicted therein bound for the Chinese market.

China, as you well know, loves Buicks like the NBA loves revenue.

While the China-bound Regal’s design alterations will no doubt carry over, in some form, to vehicles found in other markets, just how long buyers in America will have access to the model remains an open question.

Ready to be depressed? Your author knows he is. After buying a new manual-transmission vehicle last year, the model he purchased has since fallen under Mary Barra’s axe, and the transmission type he so loves is now rarer than an albino moose.

How rare? The number of electric vehicles sold in the third quarter of this year is greater than the number of manual-transmission cars sold during the same period. Life comes at you fast.

We’ve got an addendum for our latest story on how automakers should view Harley-Davidson as a cautionary tale. The company, which recently began exploring electric motorcycles as a way to boost sales and spur public interest, recently told dealers not to expect deliveries of its newest model.

The $29,799 LiveWire that was supposed to start re-arriving this month is again delayed.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the manufacturer claims there’s an issue with the all-electric bike’s charging equipment — something that will obviously need to be addressed before it goes on sale. As a result, H-D is pulling the production plug on the two-wheeled EV.

Regardless of what your college instructors claim, individuality remains a virtue. And, while (legally and harmlessly) going your own way is still a good thing, great masses of individuals often gravitate towards the same thing. It’s an age-old phenomenon, one easily seen in the buying preferences of minority communities.

If you’re someone who values the time-honored affordability and usability of the common sedan, thank the African-American community. They’re still buying tons of them. If you value innovation and industry disruption, tip your hat at the Asian community. They show an increased affinity for trying new things.

While registration data shows America’s visible minorities haven’t diverged too far from last year’s buying preferences, a few surprises can be found in data drawn from the first half of the year.

Not happy with sales thus far this year, General Motors wants Ford Mustang owners to know there’ll be cash waiting for them should they wander into a dealer in search of a Chevrolet Camaro.

As 2019 draws to a close, GM’s pony car sits in third place in the niche segment’s sales standings. This, despite a 2019 model year refresh and a greater availability of four-cylinder offerings. Maybe a few grand will compel rival owners to make the switch?