March 12, 2010

March Sales Begin like a Lion, Thanks to Toyota, GM Incentives
Fresh Toyota and General Motors incentives boosted the U.S. auto market in early March to the fastest sales pace this year, the auto data Web site Edmunds.com said late Thursday. According to Automotive News, in the first eight days of March, the U.S. seasonally adjusted annualized sales rate was 12.5 million units, said Edmunds.com senior analyst Ray Zhou. That's the highest level since the Cash for Clunkers surge in August 2009. "Generous incentives from GM and Toyota have stimulated this boom," Zhou said. "But I anticipate that it will cool off and the month will end with a SAAR in the low 11 millions." Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. on March 1 launched an incentives push offering 0 percent financing, subsidized lease rates and, for repeat customers, two years of free maintenance. GM matched that. With the incentives, the U.S. market share for Toyota's brands - Toyota, Scion and Lexus - jumped to 16.8 percent in early March from 12.8 percent in February. Its daily retail sales rate in early March rose about 71 percent from February's. Toyota's incentives make it the big winner so far for two reasons: It initiated the offer, and people recognize that the company's troubles make it ready to deal, said Edmunds.com CEO Jeremy Anwyl. Click here for more on what Toyota is doing to stimulate the auto industry. 
 
Review: 2011 Hyundai Sonata Raises the Bar for Rivals
According to James R. Healey at USA Today, Hyundai wants the redesigned 2011 Sonata to change the midsize, family sedan segment. It does take some daring steps: For one, it's not so midsize anymore, not by the government's definition of full size, which is 120 cubic feet of passenger and cargo space added together. Sonata, at 120.2 cubic feet, squeaks into full size, as has Honda's Accord (120 cubic feet) since its last redesign. Two, Sonata offers only a four-cylinder engine. No more V-6 that Sonata used to offer as an option, and that rivals still do. Hyundai's U.S. CEO John Krafcik is certain that small, high-tech four-cylinder engines are the future, and he wants Hyundai there now. He wants the brand to be inarguably the highest-mileage car company in the U.S. Three, Sonata is rated a commendable 35 miles per gallon on the highway, vs. 31 mpg and 32 mpg for the Accord and Camry fours. But the around-town rating of 22 mpg for the Sonata is little or no better than the others.Click here for photos of the redesigned Hyundai Sonata. To read Healey's entire review on the standards the Sonata sets for the rest of the industry, click here.

Government May Tighten Car Safety Standards
Government vehicle safety regulators may seek greater authority to investigate defects in cars and trucks and are weighing a range of new safety requirements in response to Toyota's recall of more than 8 million vehicles over brake and acceleration problems. According to MSNBC, David Strickland, head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said Thursday his agency will take a "hard look" at the power it has to set safety standards for automakers. Current authority, acquired in the 1960s and 1970s, may not be enough to oversee the technology used in modern vehicles, he said. But one lawmaker at a House hearing said the agency's problems seem to have more to do with "ineptitude" and lack of money than with insufficient powers. Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) said the agency's response to the Toyota recalls had been sluggish after "years of stagnation in funding." The government may also require automakers to include brake override systems, a fix intended to prevent the type of runaway car incidents that some Toyota drivers have described, Strickland said. It would ensure that a driver stepping on the brakes can slow the vehicle even if the gas pedal is stuck or malfunctioning. Click here for more on steps the government may take to tighten vehicle safety standards.

Small Victory: Mini's 4 x 4 Version Created for U.S. Market
BMW, Mini's parent company, says that the U.S. has become Mini's top market, with sales surpassing those in its native U.K. and 99,300 vehicles sold between 2008 and 2009. According to WSJ Magazine, if more proof was needed that Americans have embraced this small car as their own, BMW recently unveiled the Countryman at the International Motor Show in Geneva, a Mini designed specifically for the American market that adds 4 x 4 handling and swollen measurements to the brand's 50-year-old roots. Click here for a photo of the 4 x 4. "The car has had a tremendous impact on the culture," says John Wolkonowicz, senior analyst at forecasting firm IHS Global Insight, "even if the sales numbers aren't great in the grand scheme. For Mini, that's a success." Indeed, the brand has played a large part in changing the way Americans think about tiny cars and, in doing so, has helped create a new niche market that reconciles downsized consumption with high-performance luxury. Click here for a sneak peek video of Mini's new SUV coming to U.S. shores. Who is the Countryman aimed at? Mini won't release a specific consumer profile, preferring instead to characterize buyers with phrases like "post-materialist auto enthusiast." Click here for more at WSJ on Mini's newest addition to its popular U.S. lineup.

Six Decades of Best-Selling Cars
Motor Trend has spent six decades tracking, reporting on, and predicting automotive trends. Looking back with the benefit of Superman-grade X-ray hindsight, it's not surprising that the basic formula for connecting with buyers on a truly macro scale changes very slowly over time. Paradigms shift slowly, and as a result game-changers like turbine engines, electric cars, fuel cells, and even mid-engine Corvettes continue to elude us - at least in significant numbers - and maybe always will. America's best-selling car was a standard, full-size, domestically designed and built sedan (with niche-selling wagon, coupe, and convertible siblings included in the sales totals) for three-quarters of the last century. Since 1975, most deviations from that paradigm have signaled some meaningful shift in our economic, demographic, or psychographic status quo. The oil shock of 1973, for example, combined with inflationary woes to increase the popularity of less expensive midsize cars. By 1989, conditions had improved enough that a midsize sedan (Ford's highly acclaimed first-gen Taurus) achieved top-sales status. The Taurus, Honda Accord, and Toyota Camry sedans have held the title ever since. Click here to take a closer look at Motor Trend's 60 years of best selling cars in the U.S.