Auto Industry Archive

It’s a truism in the auto industry that car dealers make more money from parts and service and from acting as a middleman to arrange auto loans than they do on new-car sales. Even so, it’s a little jarring to be reminded so graphically, as Charlotte, N.C.-based Sonic Automotive did in a presentation at a conference earlier this month, based on results from the first half of 2008....

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U.S. auto sales kept dropping in October, according to edmunds.com. Based on shopping data from the edmunds.com consumer web site, October sales fell 28.9 percent from the year-ago month, the company said. As bad as that is – and it’s terrible news — at least it’s not hugely worse than the fall-off in September. Last month U.S. auto sales fell 26.6 percent from the year-ago...

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There’s a big difference between Chrysler’s net loss by American accounting standards, according to Chrysler, versus the International Financial Reporting Standards that Daimler used to figure out how much money Daimler’s 19.9 percent of Chrysler lost in the second quarter. There’s even an in-between number, because Chrysler disagrees with the number Daimler reported,...

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The number of miles traveled by American drivers fell 5.6 percent in August, according to an Oct. 23 report. That was the biggest single-month drop ever recorded by the U.S. Department of Transportation, which started keeping track in 1970. It also brings to a record 10 months in a row, the number of months “vehicle miles traveled” have fallen versus the year-ago month. The state of...

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 Just in time for Halloween, Daimler reports it’s being haunted by ghosts, from past leases. On Oct. 23, Daimler said it took a charge of 449 million euros, to reassess residual values on vehicles returning from leases. The company took an additional 248 million-euro charge for restructuring and for residual values at its former partner, Chrysler. Daimler still owns just under 20...

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The $700 billion financial-services bailout, additional billions of dollars in extended insurance from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., more than $1 trillion in loans from the Federal Reserve, and an injection of $250 billion in new capital for banks have managed to head off a depression, but a U.S. recession is upon us. That’s according to Dallas-based Comerica Bank, which...

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The current ad campaign for the Volkswagen Routan breaks two simple rules of advertising: 1. Keep it simple. 2. Never make fun of the customer. The Routan ad campaign features an all-new minivan nobody ever heard of, with a funny-looking name; plus celebrity spokesperson Brooke Shields; plus a cameo appearance by “Das Auto,” the celebrity, vintage, talking Volkswagen Bug...

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Hell has thawed out, a little. I was agog, and said “hell froze over,” when Ford announced in June that it was postponing the launch of the next-generation Ford F-150 pickup. The F-150 is still (for now) the nation’s best-selling vehicle, despite the beating it’s taking this year in sales, along with other full-size pickups and just about every other kind of truck. Ford...

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Billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian has decided to take his money out of Ford Motor Co. and put it into something more likely to pay off – like gambling. Kerkorian’s Tracinda Corp. announced Oct. 21 that Kerkorian sold about 7.3 million shares of Ford on Oct. 20, at an average price of $2.43 per share, for a total of about $17.7 million. Furthermore, he may sell the rest of his...

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Values for used pickups and SUVs continued to slowly rebound from recent lows in May and June, when gas first passed $4 per gallon, turning what had been a slow decline in demand for trucks into a rout. At the same time, compact-car prices in September fell slightly from August, as demand for more fuel-efficient cars could be starting to level off, according to wholesale auto auction firm ADESA...

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