Tagged: auto sales

U-S car sales rose about two percent in April from the same month last year.

That's better news than it sounds, according to Michelle Krebs of Edmunds dot com. She says there were three fewer selling days this April than there were last year.

Krebs says small car sales remained brisk in April, because of high gas prices. But she says sales of midsize cars like the Honda Accord and Chevy Malibu are also increasing.

"Ffor not a lot more money than you'd pay for a smaller car, with very little sacrifice in fuel economy if any, you get a bigger car with more room," says Krebs.  "And of course in America bigger is better."

Update 12:35 p.m.

Ford, Chrysler and General Motors all posted higher auto sales in February.

Ford sales were up by 14% compared with February 2011.   Chrysler sales soared by 40%.  GM posted a slight 1% increase.

Erich Merkel is an analyst with Ford Motor Company.  He says rising gasoline prices influenced which vehicles sold last month.

“What we saw was really strong momentum into more fuel efficient vehicles and toward smaller vehicles," says Merkel.

Merkel expects the trend toward more fuel efficient vehicles will continue, as gasoline prices are expected to continue to rise.

11:30 a.m.

Ford Motor Co. says its U.S. sales rose 14 percent in February thanks to big demand for its Focus compact car.

January was another good month for U.S. car sales. 

Analysts think most car companies will report they sold more cars in January than they did in the same month last year.

Part of the reason is pent-up demand.  Many people held onto their old cars during the recession, and month by month, those aging cars are giving out.  People are also feeling a bit more confident in the economy.

Also, it appears Toyota has for the most part gotten back to full production, after last year's tsunami in Japan.

But there's another factor at play, according to Jesse Toprak of TrueCars.com.

That's great product.

Update:

GM sales rose almost 8% in July, while Ford sales rose 8.9% and Chrysler sales increased 20.1%.

From the Detroit Free Press:

The Detroit Three saw U.S. sales increase in July and gained market share, as a troubling economy and weeks of worries about the U.S. debt ceiling continued to hamper a recovery in auto sales.

Chrysler had its best July since 2007 to lead Detroit’s automakers with a 20.1% surge, off a 33% gain in sales to individual customers. General Motors’ U.S. sales rose 7.6% last month and Ford’s grew 8.9%. Japanese automakers continued to lose share to their American rivals as they recovered from the March earthquake and tsunami in their country.

GM forecast July industrywide sales of light cars and trucks were flat from the previous year and slightly better than June. Consumers stayed out of showrooms amid news of climbing unemployment and bitter debate over raising the U.S. debt ceiling to prevent the country from defaulting on its loans tonight. President Barack Obama signed legislation today to prevent that scenario after the Senate approved the bill.

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Original post:

From the Associated Press:

General Motors says its U.S. sales rose nearly 8 percent last month, led by fuel-efficient vehicles such as the
Chevrolet Cruze car.

Snyder Meeting with Fellow Governors

Governor Rick Snyder is in Washington D.C. for the annual National Governors Association winter meetings. The nation’s Governors had dinner last night at the White House where, the Associated Press reports, President Obama told them:

"Our federal system is a laboratory for democracy. In each of your states, you guys are trying all kinds of things. Oftentimes, your best ideas end up percolating up and end up becoming models and templates for the country."

Governor Snyder and other governors will meet today with President Obama and Vice President Biden.

February Auto Sales

Auto analysts are expecting to see an improvement in auto sales in February compared with the same time last year. That’s despite some interference from Mother Nature, Tracy Samilton reports. Samilton explains that it’s not unusual for auto sales to decline because of big snowstorms. But, one auto analyst told Samilton, auto sales still probably improved in February by 20 percent.

City Administrator Resigns

Eric Waidelich, Allen Park’s City Administrator, has resigned. The news comes less than a week after the Allen Park City Council voted to lay off the city’s entire fire department because of budget problems. As Rina Miller reports, “A movie studio-deal gone bad is getting some of the blame for Allen Park’s financial troubles. The Detroit suburb bought an old Visteon facility in 2008 for almost $25 million, banking on a plan to lease the property to Unity Studios. The deal flopped  and now Allen Park is broke.”

Most car companies had a better January than the same month last year, led by Chrysler and GM, which improved their sales 23%.

Ford sales improved 13%.  The company had a stronger January a year ago than Chrysler and GM, which were both struggling to rebuild inventories, so Ford's percentage improvement is not as great.

Ford also terminated its Mercury brand in December, and officials say the company is deliberately reducing sales to fleets like rental car companies.  A high volume of fleet sales can lower the residual value of a company's vehicles.

Toyota sales were up by 17% and Nissan by 15%.

December auto sales numbers are due tomorrow. It’s expected to be another good month for Detroit’s automakers. 

After watching auto sales dwindle in the depths of the recession, auto companies have seen a surge in buying demand in recent months.  December is expected to be the third straight month of strong domestic auto sales.

Morningstar Financial senior equity analyst Dave Whiston predicts the data will show sales topped 12 million vehicles in 2010.    He says the reason is simple.

 “You can’t go to AutoZone or Pep Boys forever.   Eventually you need to buy a new vehicle.” 

At a presentation to the Automotive Press Association in Detroit yesterday, Michael Robinet, director of global production forecasters at IHS Automotive, said U.S. auto sales could reach 17 million in 4 years. Robinet predicts sales will exceed 12.8 million next year and 16 million in 2013.  As the Detroit Free Press reports: 

That would be a huge reversal from the historically low sales levels that brought the industry to its knees during the recent recession. The last time industry sales exceeded 17 million was in 2001.

U.S. car sales were up by 17 percent last month. The country's most popular automakers in November were:

1. General Motors
2. Ford
3. Toyota
4. Honda (American)
5. Chrysler