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Strategies & Market Trends : Zeev's Turnips - No Politics -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Zeev Hed who wrote (21333)	1/12/2002 10:51:40 AM
From: orkrious	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 99280

Did that article give a number for US actual car shipments in 2001? Could it be that the article refer to "cars", not including small trucks Cars and trucks. No total for 2001. Here's a link. auto.com Here's the article specifically talking about Ford. auto.com Their actual shipments in 2001 were 4.1 mil with capacity of 5.7 and a best year ever of 4.8. (stats are roughly halfway down in the article)

To: Zeev Hed who wrote (21333)	1/12/2002 11:52:54 AM
From: ajtj99	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 99280

Zeev, cars and trucks are about evenly split in sales right now in the US. Trucks are pickups, SUV's, and minivans. Cars are the traditional passenger vehicles. I believe the 2001 year's sales came in at about 17.1 million vehicles. 2002 is projected to be anywhere from 14.5 million to 15.5 million vehicles, which is a big drop. There has even been talk by some Ford managers of getting out of the car business completely, but I think that is by lower level managers. The trucks are the only profitable segment of their business. It is interesting that Honda, Nissan, and Toyota can make cars in the US and turn a profit, but the Big 3 can't. One reason is the hefty pension burdens the Big 3 shoulder, but the expensive union contracts are another reason. Plain mismanagement is a prime reason, however. I probably would have had far less patience than Ross Perot had I been at GM at the same time he was. The vehicles Ford is cutting should have been cut 2-years ago. The Escort was essentially replaced by the Focus, the Contintental by the LS, and the Villager by the SUV's. The Cougar was never built in enough volume to probably even pay back its tooling costs. I believe it was on the Escort platform, so maybe as long as the Escort was built it wasn't so expensive to make the Cougar also. I also wonder how long GM will keep the Buick brand. Try to find anyone younger than 55 driving one. It may end up on the scrap heap like Oldsmobile without a makeover, IMO. Lastly, I think Toyota messed up the styling on the new Camry with the back end. The 50-year old demographics on that car may go up another 2-3 years on the rear alone. That's not good. They tried to make it look like the Avalon, but that car's demo's shot up after it's most recent styling, and I personally know some people who are looking to unload their 3-year old Avalons just because they don't want to be associated with that demographic. Anyway, some car rambling that probably won't get read by anyone <G>. I feel better now.