October numbers: GM looks like the big winner


Posted Yesterday 01:30 PM by motortrend_online




DETROIT - On Thursday, General Motors reported adjusted sales dropped one percent over October '06. Its market share is up more than one percent since August, to 25.1 percent. Ford Motor Company reported a 9.5-percent drop in truck sales, a 13.0-percent drop in car sales and success because it is selling so many fewer cars and trucks to rental lots. And Chrysler LLC announced plans to lay off 8,500 to 10,000 hourly jobs by eliminating shifts at five assembly plants, and 1,000 more cuts in salaried employees, plus a 37-percent cut in contract employees. This is in addition to 13,000 job cuts announced as part of Chrysler's February turnaround plan. That totals one in three jobs, as the Detroit Free Press puts it. Or, say, the equivalent of one of its divisions.


Chrysler is still giving out monthly sales numbers, though. Unadjusted October sales fell nine percent versus October '06. GM, incidentally, posted an unadjusted increase of three percent over October '06. Automakers like to trumpet adjusted, or unadjusted numbers, whichever looks better in a given month. ("Adjusted" means the company accounts for the number of sales days, which is complicated math because dealerships in places like California are open over weekends while all Detroit-area dealerships, for example, are closed on Sundays and many are closed on Saturdays, and that doesn't include variations on holidays.)

Chrysler also is trumpeting that Chrysler brand sales are up seven percent "led by Sebring sedan and convertible." Yet the layoff announcement -- a separate press release -- says the company will drop the second shift at Sterling Heights, Michigan, where Dodge Avenger and Chrysler Sebring are built. Yes, Sebring sales were up 138 percent in October, but that's compared with October '06, when new Sebring production was just ramping up. It's not a runaway success if Chrysler is cutting a plant shift.

Besides dropping the Chrysler Crossfire, Pacifica, PT Cruiser convertible and Dodge Magnum, Chrysler is cutting shifts for production of Jeep Liberty and Dodge Nitro, Chrysler 300, Dodge Charger, Chrysler Sebring, Dodge Avenger and even the yet-to-be-sold Dodge Challenger. I'm more convinced now that Chrysler intends to cut enough dealers to "triple" them all into combined Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep dealers, and eventually cut redundant models like the Sebring sedan. If it can get the United Auto Workers to sign a four-year contract and then announce "new plans to balance supply and demand" that will eliminate some 20,000 blue-collar jobs in total, negotiating with its dealers shouldn't be as hard as it sounds.

Chrysler under Cerberus isn't fighting back to being a major automaker, but it seems ready to settle into being a someday-profitable, limited-segment producer roughly the size of Nissan.

Ford didn't have much to crow about, even if it boasts "record sales for new crossover vehicles" fueling "solid retail sales." But on Friday, Ford announced that its cavalry, in the form of ex-Toyota guy Jim Farley, will add "direct leadership of U.S. marketing, sales and service" for Ford, Lincoln and Mercury to his job description, which already included leading the global sales department. He can't arrive quickly enough, but by the time he does, Farley won't have to worry about Jaguar and Land Rover, which are all but sold.

Ford sold 5,361 Tauri and Five Hundreds last month, compared with 6,010 Five Hundreds the previous October, by the way.

GM looks like a big winner, then, doesn't it? Well, yes, it's holding back Toyota a bit (with help from Toyota, of all companies). Its light truck sales were up 1.7 percent in October, but car sales fell 4.5 percent. This comes just as GM launches some great new cars, like the Cadillac CTS, Chevrolet Malibu and Saturn Astra. Wh

 

This is really starting to get confusing. Which way is it? Are the Sebring, Aspen, and Magnum successful or not? The press seems to keep going back and forth on this topic.