Listen to “AD #2930 – U.S. Sales Surprisingly Strong; Top NASCAR Teams Valued Over $1 Billion; Musk Says Tesla Headed to India” on Spreaker.
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Runtime: 10:32
0:07 U.S. Sales Surprisingly Strong
0:45 September Sales Winners & Losers
2:40 Autoline’s Sales Takeaways
3:55 Top NASCAR Teams Valued Over $1 Billion
5:02 Honda Announces Exit From F1
5:39 Genesis Applies Machine Learning to ACC
6:31 Traffic Deaths Fall Again
7:49 JLR Interior To Be Made From Garbage
8:23 Musk Says Tesla Headed To India
9:07 Mercedes Jumps On The Scooter Bandwagon
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U.S. SALES SURPRISINGLY STRONG
New car sales came in surprisingly strong in the U.S. market in September. Automakers sold over 1.3 million vehicles, compared to 1.2 million a year ago. However, last year there were 2 fewer selling days during the month, so on a daily selling rate basis sales were actually down 2.4%. The SAAR, or annualized rate hit 16 million units compared to 17 million a year ago, but it was up from 15 million in August and that was the 5th straight month in a row that sales were up since the pandemic clobbered the market back in April.
| U.S. Light Vehicle Sales | |
|---|---|
| SAAR | |
| September 2020 | 16.34 Million |
| September 2019 | 17.08 Million |
| August 2020 | 15.18 Million |
SEPTEMBER SALES WINNERS & LOSERS
But it was a mixed bag for automakers. Some had a September to remember. Others had a month they would rather forget. Nissan and Mitsubishi had a terrible month, but they were weak even before the pandemic hit. The big surprise was at BMW and Mercedes-Benz, which both had double digit drops, as did FCA. At the other end of the spectrum Mazda had a spectacular month, with sales up more than 18%, Tesla was up nearly 17%, and Kia was up over 14%. Subaru and Toyota both put in a solid performance.
| Sales Losers | ||
|---|---|---|
| Nissan | 72,465 | -34.2% |
| Mitsubishi | 7,314 | -12.9% |
| BMW | 26,886 | -20.1% |
| Mercedes | 28,750 | -17.5% |
| FCA | 172,361 | -10.8% |
| Sales Winners | ||
|---|---|---|
| Mazda | 24,237 | +18.4% |
| Tesla | 21,000 | +16.8% |
| Kia | 55,519 | +14.5% |
| Subaru | 60,103 | +7.0% |
| Toyota | 197,124 | +6.9% |
PASSENGER CARS SALES CONTINUE TO DROP
Passenger cars continued to lose sales and market share. Sales were down 10%. All the action was on the truck side, which of course includes pickups, vans, crossovers and SUVs. The truck segment was up 12%.
ALFA REALLY DOES LOOK TO BE TURNING AROUND
Here are a few nuggets we gleaned from the numbers. Earlier this week we reported on how it looks like Alfa Romeo may have turned the corner when it comes to quality and residual values. The sales numbers back that up. Alfa was up an impressive 35% and the Stelvio alone was up nearly 50%.
SILVERADO SALES FINALLY CATCH THE RAM PICKUP
Looks like the Chevrolet Silverado finally caught up with the Ram pickup. Both sold 51,000 and change, but the Chevy nosed out ahead.
TESLA MODEL Y CANNIBALIZING MODEL 3 SALES
The Tesla Model Y looks to be cannibalizing sales from the Model 3 right now. Sales of the 3 plummeted 35%. Even so, Tesla is still coming out ahead. If you combine sales of both models, they’re up 40% compared to sales of just the Model 3 a year ago. And it sure shows the value of Tesla having a crossover. Imagine what could happen if it added a bigger crossover and a smaller one to the lineup.
It’s great to see the market putting in a strong recovery. But let’s stand back and look at the big picture. For the year, the overall market is still down nearly 19%. Automakers have sold 2.4 million fewer vehicles than they did at this point last year. Hopefully they can whittle that down over the next three months. But when they report their third quarter earnings we need to brace ourselves for some bad numbers.
TOP NASCAR TEAMS VALUED OVER $1 BILLION
We all know it takes deep pockets to race in NASCAR. I mean, just look at the cars, they’re practically billboards that also happen to be able to go 200 MPH. But all those sponsors wouldn’t be there if they didn’t think there was money to be made. And according to safe-betting-sites.com, the top five largest teams in NASCAR have a combined value of over a billion dollars. Hendrick Motorsports is by far the most valuable team in NASCAR at $315 million. It’s followed by Joe Gibbs Racing, Stewart-Haas Racing, Richard Childress Racing and finally Team Penske at $152 million. That’s a lot of money, but it pales in comparison to other sports, like baseball where teams can be worth in excess of $3 billion or even other racing series, like Formula One where the value of Ferrari and Mercedes easily top a billion dollars. NASCAR has been doing a better job lately of attracting new fans, so maybe those values will start going up again.
HONDA ANNOUNCES F1 EXIT
In other racing news, Honda announced it will no longer supply engines to Formula One after the 2021 season concludes. It got back into the racing series in 2015 and has seen success this year and last, winning several races. But Honda’s goal to reach carbon neutrality played a part in it’s exit and the company will invest the money it would have spent on its racing efforts to develop future zero emission technologies. Honda had supplied engines to Red Bull Racing and Scuderia AlphaTauri, which will leave those teams scrambling to find a new manufacturer.
GENESIS APPLIES MACHINE LEARNING TO ADAPTIVE CRUISE CONTROL
Adaptive cruise control can be a blessing and a curse. A blessing because it can greatly reduce your cognitive driving load in traffic, but a curse because it can leave gaps for other cars to slip into or can seemingly take forever to react when traffic moves away from a traffic light. That’s why we can’t wait to drive the new Genesis G80. It will be the first car to embed machine learning into its adaptive cruise system. You can teach the system how close you want to follow the car in front of you, within certain limits of course. And you can teach it how quickly you want it to react when traffic gets going after the light turns green at an intersection. That’s music to our ears, but that’s what Genesis is telling us. We want to experience it for ourselves, and when we do we’ll let you know if it’s as good as it sounds.
TRAFFIC DEATHS FALL AGAIN
Traffic deaths in the U.S. fell for the third straight year in 2019. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced that nearly 36,100 people died in accidents last year, which is a 2% drop from 2018, and that’s despite vehicle miles driven increasing 1%. Because of that, the fatality rate was the lowest it’s been since 2014. But this year is a bit of a different story. While overall deaths are down compared to 2019, the fatality rate is the highest it’s been since 2005. That’s because traffic volumes decreased more than the number of traffic deaths, which caused the fatality rate to spike. The agency says what we’ve been reporting for a while, that while there were fewer drivers out on the road because of lockdowns and quarantines, there was more risky driving, including speeding, driving under the influence and not wearing a seat belt.
JLR INTERIORS TO BE MADE FROM GARBAGE
I’ve seen vehicle interiors that looked like garbage dumps before, but future Jaguars and Land Rovers will feature components made from literal landfill waste. It’s going to use a synthetic nylon in floor mats and other interior trim pieces that comes from recycled industrial plastic, fabric offcuts and fishing nets. The resulting fiber has the same chemical and performance characteristics as other materials and allows JLR to provide customers with a premium and hardwearing product, while also being more environmentally friendly.
MUSK SAYS TESLA ENTERING INDIA IN 2021
In any crime show a criminal will eventually be caught at some point by the good-guys “following the money.” Can the same be said for EV incentives? A week ago we reported that India is proposing over $4.5 billion in incentives to lure companies to build advanced batteries in the country. Early this morning on Twitter Elon Musk hinted that Tesla will enter the Indian market “next year for sure.” Pollution has been a problem in India, but the current Prime Minister is really pushing for the use of electric vehicles. Tesla may just sell vehicles in the country, but the rate at which the company is expanding, you never know, it could build another gigafactory.
MERCEDES JUMPS INTO THE WORLD OF SCOOTERS
Mercedes offers vehicles in pretty much every segment, from big commercial trucks to small passenger cars. But now the automaker is jumping into an all-new segment with the introduction of an eScooter. It weighs about 30 pounds and it can be folded up to be stored in a trunk or carried around if needed. The scooter has a top speed of about 12.5 miles per hour and a range of 25 kilometers or 15.5 miles. It also comes with front and rear suspension. A display shows the speed, battery life and riding mode and includes integrated navigation as well. You can also connect your smartphone to the scooter via Bluetooth, to manage functions like lights and driving mode.
But that brings us to the end of today’s show and this week’s worth of shows. Thanks for watching and have a great weekend.
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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.
