[davidlane]

Despite a selling pace sharply lower than last year, car executives see a few bright spots.


U.S. auto sales fell sharply last month, but several industry executives sounded cautiously optimistic that the worst may be over after falling gas prices and flashy sales promotions lured skittish consumers back into showrooms.

While down sharply from year-earlier levels, the selling pace in August beat expectations, rising to 13.72 million cars and trucks on an annualized basis from a 16-year low of 12.55 million in July.

"It's too early for anyone to declare victory," said Mark LaNeve, vice president of North American sales at General Motors Corp.

Advertisement

But "we're very encouraged by what we saw in August," he said. "Consumers are feeling better, and we're clearly seeing it in this month's sales across the industry and at General Motors."

Still, the selling pace was far below last August's annualized rate of 16.3 million light vehicles. And Detroit's automakers continue to bear the brunt of the market's steep decline this year. It contracted 15.5 percent in August.

GM, Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC reported even bigger declines -- 20.3 percent for GM, 26.5 percent for Ford and 34.5 percent at Chrysler, which is struggling to hang on to fifth place in the U.S. market.

According to Autodata Corp., the domestic brands' combined market share shrank to 45.3 percent from 50.9 percent a year ago. But their share was above a low of 42.7 percent recorded in July.

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080904/AUTO01/809040364/1148

 

[eurohazard]

I was going to comment on how high incentives have lured those who were on the fence about buying now or later. Then I saw your Nissan/incentive thread! lol

Yes they correlate.

 

[rob2299usa]

GM incentive spending went down in August compared to July

 

[davidlane]

GM incentive spending went down in August compared to July

General Motors Corp., which in late August offered its employee discounts to all customers, raised its incentives 20.1%, or $583 -- to an average of $3,482. Still the automaker's sales declined 20.4%. From a Detroit Free Press article.

 

[Ambalanche]

"we're very encouraged by what we saw in August,"

Whoever is included in "We" should be immediately fired and sent to any political organization's spin machine. If they are "very encouraged" by what they saw in August, they have thier heads in the sand!

 

[markusername]

Despite a selling pace sharply lower than last year, car executives see a few bright spots.


According to Autodata Corp., the domestic brands' combined market share shrank to 45.3 percent from 50.9 percent a year ago. But their share was above a low of 42.7 percent recorded in July.

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080904/AUTO01/809040364/1148

I read somewhere that the car only percentage for the big 3 was between 32% and 33% only and falling fast. Take out all the fleet sales and probably 80% of the population shuns the big 3.

 

[montrealvue]

Hmmmm.....the big 3 are down...lets see why....

I'm in the market for a car and went dealer hopping this week as I go back to work next week and won't have much time to look around for quite a while. I walked into my local Ford dealer, all the salespeople were in a meeting? NEXT!
I wandered into a Chrysler dealer, poked around cars in the showroom for more than 10 minutes and was never acknowledged. I even went outside and got into cars that were outside near the entrance, nobody. NEXT! Saturn, Toyota and Nissan all took the time to greet me, ask me what I was looking for and show me their vehicles, with the exception of Saturn, all insisted on a test drive. I wish I could say quality or pricing or lack of lease programs were the issues working against the big 3. From my experience, it seems to be basic salesmanship!

 

[chakis24]

I read somewhere that the car only percentage for the big 3 was between 32% and 33% only and falling fast. Take out all the fleet sales and probably 80% of the population shuns the big 3.

does gm sell to fleets? all our cars are ford foci (including some brand new ones), dodge strati, a few explorers, a ranger, some tauri, and one 2001 cavalier that runs on cng. we even have a few brand new prii (to my dismay).

and all the taxis ive seen are all new honda civics (alot of them actually). theyre either that, crown vics, are the old impala (the first new model). down in nyc there are escapes, some toyo minvans, and crown vics.