92RS shearn

http://autos.yahoo.com/articles/auto...t-selling-cars

I am sure part of this is due to the massive rebates on them, still good sales figures though.

monstertodd

When they are figuring truck sales, I wonder if they are including all the fleet sales of work trucks.

formula79

Thats a pretty huge drop..the F-150 was at almost 800K units at one point.

guionM

Likely.



I'm not surprized that large pickups are still top sellers, and I don't believe that will ever change. Of everything that the auto industry has ever made, the 2 areas where US car makers created vehicles 2nd to none are "muscle" cars and Pickup trucks. BMW, Infinity, and even Hyundai have made vehicles that could credibly be called "Pony" cars, other countries made performance sedans before we did, and we're still getting our arms around how to make good quality economy cars. But in pickups and muscle cars, no one has made anything better yet. Just look at how Nissan and Toyota's large pickup truck sales have tanked.

My first vehicle after my '68 Camaro was a '73 Ford F-100 Explorer with a 390 4 speed manual. I also owned a '88 Ford Ranger. Pickups are useful, and unlike SUVs, aren't bought typically by people who not too long ago would have been driving minivans or farther back, station wagons (at least not yet).

Pickups tend to last alot longer than cars, are far more durable, and if I was to buy a vehicle and had no real intention of buying another vehicle for the rest of my life, it would likely be a pickup. Fullsized. at least an extended cab with usable back seats. It comes in handy when needed to move or simply move things.

If GM survives, you can bet that there will still be Silverado pickups. If Chrysler is able to sell anything under bankruptcy, it's biggest seller is going to be the Dodge Ram. Chrysler survives, it will still make the Ram pickup. Ford's F series truck will always be in the top 2 or 3 selling vehicles... even $5 per gallon gas (here in Cali) didn't stem it's sales rate.

But that doesn't mean they were right in abandoning the car market. Junking car programs and handing that market to the Japanese was the most retarded (and as it turns out) most fatal mistake the US industry has ever done.

Ed 2001 SS

It would be hard to understate just how much I agree with this statement. Hopefully the industry survives.

SSbaby

You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink...

Is it the manufacturers' fault that the people can't be convinced to hop into cheaper modes of transport?

Tokuzumi

It's not an issue of consumers buying trucks/suvs like they were going out of style. If the big 3 took some effort to design the few smaller vehicles they have now, they may not be in this mess to begin with. Look at the cobalt. It's a decent looking car, inside and out, but if you compare it to a japanese competitor, it just doesn't look like much effort was put into designing/building the car. Nothing says "I don't care" more than the Dodge Avenger/Chrysler Sebring. Even a blind man could see they are boring cars. The Saturn Ion (I know it's extinct now) was a very close second. And the Chrysler PT Cruiser? It's the exact same vehicle that rolled across the assembly line in 2001. The caliber looks half way decent, but has cheap fit and finish. If the cars above had even the slightest development budget, these cars could be/have been very viable contenders to the offerings from Japan. But the big 3 decided to put every dollar made from trucks, back into truck development. The big 3 were the grasshoppers, while Japan was the ant.

SCNGENNFTHGEN

Americans do love their Muscle cars & trucks! I just don't see what's so much better about the foreign/transplant cars. Not with todays American cars IMO.

SSbaby

Small cars are hardly profitable... but I take your point.

If GM/Ford took the small car market more seriously and introduced potential customers to the GM brand, they might have half a chance of repeat business. A wasted opportunity, no doubt, for the domestics.

What we now need is for the govt to back the Volt to the max and help to change GM's lackluster image.

Jason E

FWIW, the Pacifica sales drop is misleading...they haven't produced '08s for 12 months now

I agree 110% with guion's pickup arguments...its true. Now that I own my own truck for the first time, I don't think I could be without one...but I USE my truck. With my new house, I need a plow truck, my wife and I just bought horses, etc. A 2500 regular cab is a little hardcore for a DD if I needed to drive it every day (I don't), but the durability and useful parts of what he said are dead accurate.

I won't be without a truck again...yes, even with $5/gal gas.

Z28x

I still can't believe the Camry out sells the Accord. I've driven both and just like everything about the Accord better. Malibu is also a better car but GM still has some marketing to do to catch up. Resale needs to improve on American products compared to the Japanese.

Eric Bryant

What would be interesting to see is how the average sticker price and average transaction price has changed for pickup trucks this year compared to previous years.

guionM

I disagree with that last sentence. To me, the Volt is a white elephant, great to show off but has no real value.

Toyota has a building full of cash built up over the years, and a market value 10 times that of General Motors, while GM is in mega debt. All this despite the fact both companies are roughly the same size.

Point is, Toyota can afford to put out a image car like the Prius and lose money on each one for the purpose of building up good will. GM can not afford this.

That last sentence says it all..... "government to back the Volt".

The government to looan money to save GM, the government to give out money (not loan) to help GM reduce it's losses on the Volt simply to change it's image. This is the most assinine & ridiculous thing I've ever heard for a car company that is essentially already insolvent, and is struggling simply to climb up to simply being heavily in debt.

What GM needs are vehicles the public wants that they can make money on, not vehicles designed from the start to lose money simply to build goodwill.

Ford invested in a new Hybrid system that is both inexpensive and beats the imports. The Fusion Hybrid gets 40 mpg... in the frigging city!! And it's selling for 27 grand.... and Ford will make a thin profit on it. Even if Ford were to only break even (the car by every account will be profitable), it doesn't burn off needed precious money.

This would be a different story if the Volt was at least a break-even car. But we are talking about roughly a Cobalt sized car (it's Delta architecture based) that's going to retail for a price above the base Cadillac CTS (low to mid 30K) that has a business plan that depends on government subsidies to keep it from reaching $40 grand, that GM has to keep production low to keep it from becoming a financial black hole.....and GM will STILL lose money on it.

GM would have been far better off if they invested a portion of that money in upgrading it's hybrid system, finding ways to make them cheaper so they could go into just about anything.

If Ford can make a 40 mpg city, 3700 pound Fusion, the larger resources GM has available could have kicked that number even higher.

Instead of simply wasting money on a PR stunt, GM could have wiped out a decade of new CAFE standards within a few years, both making money on each vehicle while (due to sales weighted averages of CAFE) keeping 400+ horse Camaros alive.