Category Archives: US Auto Manufacturers

Gasoline Price and Vehicle Fuel Economy Correlate

Posted on August 3, 2012 | Leave a comment

The WardsAuto Fuel Economy Index compares the cost of gasoline opposite the average fuel-economy (miles per gallon—mpg) of new vehicles sold each month.   The new vehicle fuel economy peaked in March at 24.1mpg.  It fell to 23.6 mpg in June, the last data point available.  This drop corresponds to the drop in gasoline prices over the past three months.  The chart shown below shows a strong correlation of fuel price and t the fuel economy the car buyers are settling for.

Wards cautions to not assume that the car buyer’s are fickle but it is hard not to draw that conclusion.  Wards cites fleet purchases of Toyota vehicles in March as Toyota was trying to catch up on the losses they encountered in 2011 when the tsunami shutdown a lot of Japanese industry.

Wards notes that the vehicles fuel economy by region looked this way in June: Overall, Asian auto makers combined for a 26 mpg (9.0 L/100 km) rating, followed by the European brands’ 22.8 mpg (10.3 L/100 km) and the Detroit Three’s 21.2 mpg (11.1 L/100 km).

The Detroit Big Three do move a lot of pickup trucks so that may explain the differences in fuel economy.

To read more click here.

cbdakota

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Posted in AGW, CAFE Standards, Domestic Energy, Electric Vehicles, Environment, EPA, fossil fuels, Government Regulations, Personal Automobiles, US Auto Manufacturers

Volt And Leaf July Sales And How Hybrids Are Outselling EVs

Posted on August 2, 2012 | Leave a comment

Nissan Leaf July sales fell to 395 from 535 in the previous month.   The Volt sales were up slightly in July at 1849 against the 1760 in the previous month.  According to Edmunds.com, plug-in hybrids are outselling EVs by 3 to 1.   The public’s choice of hybrids has not gone unnoticed by the automobile manufacturers.  From thedailygreen.com the following are the 2012 offerings of hybrids:

2012 HYBRIDS BY MANUFACTURER-PRICE AND ECONOMY

MODEL PRICE $ CITY ECONO MPG HIGHWAY ECONO MPG
Toyota Prius 23,520 51 48
Toyota Prius V 27,160 42 38
Chevy Volt 40,280 95 90
Ford Fusion Hybrid 28,600 41 36
Hyundai Sonata Hybrid 25,795 35 40
Infiniti M35h 50,000-55,000 27 32
Toyota Camry Hybrid 27,050 31 35
Honda Civic Hybrid 24,050 44 44
Honda Insight 19,000 40 43
Chevrolet Tahoe Hybrid 51,665 20 23
Volkswagen Touareg Supercharged Hybrid 61,110 20 24
Toyota Highlander Hybrid 38,140 28 28
Ford Escape Hybrid 32,320 34 31
Porsche Cayenne Hybrid 67,700 20 24
Porsche Panamera S Hybrid 95,000 18 27
Lexus CT 200h 29,120 43 40
Lexus GS 450h 58,950 22 25
Lexus HS 250h 36,330 35 34
Mercedes-Benz S400 Hybrid 91,000 19 26
Mercedes-Benz ML450 Hybrid 55,790 16 20
Lincoln MKZ Hybrid 34,645 41 36
BMW ActiveHybrid7 97,000-101,000 17 24

About this chart, things change.  Prices and EPA miles per gallon (MPG) may be different, as time has passed since the chart data was assembled.

To find out how well these vehicles are selling, would require more time than I want to put in.  A reasonable guess is that not a big volume for most of them.  But on the upside, Edmunds reports that Toyota is on track to sell 200,000 Prius sub-brand cars in the US this year.  That is impressive.

cbdakota

 

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Posted in Batteries, CAFE Standards, Electric Vehicles, EPA, fossil fuels, Personal Automobiles, US Auto Manufacturers

Volt: Refund Policy Allows For Tax Credit Abuse and Other Issues

Posted on July 19, 2012 | 1 comment

General Motors (GM) provides a 60-day money back policy for all Chevy models.   So if you buy a Volt you can claim a $7500 federal tax credit.  Then 59 days later, return it and get your money back.  But, you may get to keep the tax credit.  According to a posting by Mark Modica, the IRS tax form for plug-in vehicle credit does not have a minimum time requirement for the buyer to own their qualified vehicle.   Ok, so it is doubtful that anyone will buy a series of Volts in order to accumulate tax credits.  But this is just another glitch in the Volt epic.

So how is the Volt doing now as opposed to how GM felt about the Volt in the days before the first sales?  In a November, 2010 posting in WardsAuto the following was reported:

In 2012, the automaker plans to reach production capacity for the Volt at its Detroit-Hamtramck, MI, assembly plant here with about 45,000 units annually for U.S. consumption. Including export to markets such as Canada and China, capacity could reach 60,000 cars annually.

Well, they are missing the 2012 sales forecast by a wide margin.  Sales were not too good even when gasoline prices approached $4 per gallon earlier this year (2012). Will it get any better if the price of gasoline continues it’s current decline?

And in that same WardsAuto posting the following was reported:

General Motors Co. executives call the new-for-’11 Chevrolet Volt a key first step in the electrification of all its products, while also confirming long-held assumptions the car will not make money in the first years of production. However, the typical all-new vehicle program for an automaker averages $1 billion. Given its sophisticated technology, the Volt likely will cost much more to develop, build and sell.

It can’t be making money now if 45,000 units are just breakeven.  Somehow a lot of cars will have to be sold to amortize the $1 billion cost of development.

cbdakota

 

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Posted in AGW, CAFE Standards, Electric Vehicles, fossil fuels, Personal Automobiles, US Auto Manufacturers

Volt And Leaf June Sales

Posted on July 3, 2012 | 1 comment

The good news is that Chevrolet Volt sales for June were 1,760 versus the previous month’s Volt sales of 1,680.  The bad news is that at the end of June there were 5,300 Volts in stock, an 82 day-supply.  The Volt production line has been idled twice so far this year because of low demand.

Meanwhile the news is not particularly good for the Nissan Leaf because June sales were only 535 and that brings the year-to-date total sales to 3,418.  Nissan still insists that they will sell 20,000 Leafs this year.

cbdakota

 

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Posted in AGW, Alternative Energy, Batteries, Electric Vehicles, fossil fuels, Green Jobs, Personal Automobiles, US Auto Manufacturers

Washington Post versus Bain Capital

Posted on June 25, 2012 | Leave a comment

This is posting is not about man-made global warming.   Ok, so why am I posting it,  well because I question the Washington Post’s (WP) understanding of business and also their distorted attempts to paint Mitt Romney, the Republican Candidate for President of the US as a destroyer of US businesses.

I read and report on “alternatively powered” vehicles for this blog, as my regular readers know.  In doing so, I come across a lot of articles about gasoline/diesel powered vehicles.  Not to long ago, General Motors (GM) announced that they were going to build Cadillacs in China.  It seems that up-scale cars are selling pretty well in China.  Sales of the US made Caddies have been encouraging and GM concludes that they will increase their sales if they manufacture the Caddies in China.  Now think about the Toyota and BMW and Nissan vehicles that are being made in the US.  GM wants to do the same thing in China that these companies are doing here in the US.   Sounds like a smart move to me.

The WP published a story on Bain Capital, the business in which Romney had been a partner.  The newspaper’s pitch is that Bain has  “outsourced’ some small US businesses or part of their operation. Because of this, the WP wants to persuade their readers that Romney will be bad for the US business.  This WP article has been taken apart by James Pethokoukis of the American Enterprise Institute.  Pethokoukis shows that much of what the Washington Post reported is inaccurate and in some places just plain wrong. But equally as important is that industries across the globe move some manufacturing out of their homeland at times in order to be competitive.  If the business is not competitive, it goes out of business.

So here is the hypocrisy: General Motors (often called Government Motors) is essentially a branch of the US government as a result of the bail-out several years ago by this administration.   The companies that the Washington Post uses to impugn Bain are so small compared to GM there can be no comparison.  Yet if the WP feels strongly about the issue of outsourcing, why do they not take on GM?  I guess that is easy to figure out.

cbdakota

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Posted in Alternative Energy, Electric Vehicles, Energy Development, Personal Automobiles, US Auto Manufacturers, US Manufacturing Companies