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Runtime: 7:35
0:09 U.S. Car Sales Down in January
0:44 Tough Month for Luxury Brands
1:23 Employee Ideas Saved Audi Millions In 2018
2:48 Ford Redesigns Focus to Fit Largest Dog Crate
3:32 Nissan Won’t Build New SUV In Britain
4:23 Ed Welburn’s Biggest Design Regret
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This is Autoline Daily reporting on the global automotive industry, I’m Sean McElroy.
U.S. CAR SALES DOWN IN JANUARY
Sales of new cars and trucks in the U.S. market fell 2% last month, which dragged the SAAR down to 16.6 million units, compared to a SAAR of 17.1 million the year before. Amongst the full line manufacturers, General Motors, Toyota and Nissan all had a tough month, especially Nissan. But Ford had a great month, while Fiat-Chrysler and Honda posted gains. Even though GM and Ford no longer post monthly sales numbers, Wards provides a good estimate of what they sold.
| U.S. SALES, JANUARY 2019 | ||
|---|---|---|
| General Motors | 185,000 | -6.8% |
| Ford | 168,000 | +7.6% |
| Toyota | 156,021 | -6.6% |
| FCA | 135,396 | +2.1% |
| Honda | 106,139 | +1.5% |
| Nissan | 100,741 | -18.5% |
| Source: WardsAuto | ||
TOUGH MONTH FOR LUXURY BRANDS
It was a really tough month for many luxury and premium brands. Mercedes-Benz saw its sales drop nearly 14%. BMW was down over 6%, Lexus and Infiniti fell 3% and Audi dropped 2%. But Porsche and Jaguar Land Rover both posted double digit gains. Cadillac and Lincoln and Acura also had good months. And the most impressive of all was Tesla, which outsold every luxury and premium brand in the market, except for Mercedes. And that is an astonishing accomplishment.
| U.S. LUXURY SALES, JANUARY 2019 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Mercedes-Benz | 23,721 | -13.7% |
| Tesla | 18,411 | +180.4% |
| BMW | 18,102 | -6.3% |
| Lexus | 17,420 | -2.8% |
| Audi | 14,253 | -1.8% |
| Cadillac | 10,718 | +8.3% |
| JLR | 10,463 | +15.6% |
| Infiniti | 10,302 | -3.1% |
| Acura | 9,764 | +9.6% |
| Lincoln | 7,715 | +20.4% |
| Volvo | 5,854 | +5.2% |
| Porsche | 5,419 | +12.5% |
| Source: WardsAuto | ||
EMPLOYEE IDEAS SAVED AUDI MILLIONS IN 2018
Last week we talked about how the supplier ZF is asking employees for ideas to improve the company. Audi has a similar program and says suggestions from its workers helped it save nearly 110 million euros last year. Employees submitted over 25,000 ideas and the company implemented about 13,500 of them. Some are simple, like creating a new ordering system that significantly reduced the amount of paint needed to paint cars, saving 280,000 euros. Another idea eliminates the need to put additional barcode stickers on parts by improving the barcode reading technology. That helped save 21,000 euros. And at one of its body shops, employees came up with an idea that reduces the amount of residue produced during soldering, which means they no longer have to clean the parts by hand. These savings don’t just go in Audi’s pockets, the company returned 8 million euros in bonuses to its employees for their ideas.
Still to come…Brexit forces Nissan to cancel plans to build an SUV in Britain.
FORD REDESIGNS FOCUS TO FIT LARGEST DOG CRATE
Dogs are a big part of Subaru’s identity, so much so that every vehicle it makes has to be able to fit a dog crate in the trunk. It is literally a design spec. And now Ford is taking a similar approach with the new Focus wagon. Engineers worked to fit the largest possible crate it could, which required a number of modifications. The foam layer of the roof liner was compressed, the hinge screws on the hatch were altered and the trunk opening had to be reshaped as well. It results, as Ford claims, in the ability to comfortably carry an Irish Wolfhound, the world’s tallest breed of dog. The Focus wagon is on sale now in Europe.
NISSAN WON’T BUILD NEW SUV IN BRITAIN
The possibility of Brexit continues to impact the automotive industry. Nissan has scrapped plans to build its new X-Trail SUV in Britain, in part, because the region’s possible departure from the European Union has made it hard for the automaker to plan for the future. Nissan also says the move will help it optimize its investments in Europe and it will instead make the SUV exclusively in Japan.
Coming up next, GM’s former head of design shares which one of his designs he’d like to have back.
ED WELBURN’S BIGGEST DESIGN REGRET
Ed Welburn, the former head of GM design, helped create some of the company’s most iconic vehicles but there’s also some designs he wishes he could have back. He was our guest on last week’s Autoline After Hours and he talked about one of his biggest styling regrets.
Ed shares a lot more insight into his time at GM design, and you can watch that entire discussion right now on our website or on our YouTube channel.
But that’s it for today, thanks for watching and please join us again tomorrow.
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John McElroy is an influential thought leader in the automotive industry. He is a journalist, lecturer, commentator and entrepreneur. He created “Autoline Daily,” the first industry webcast of industry news and analysis.
