Analysts: October Auto Sales Picked Up Speed

 

U.S. auto sales appear to have gathered pace in October, buoyed by a rise in the availability of car loans. Auto analysts say the selling rate may have risen to its highest level this year. Estimates for the closely watched seasonally adjusted annual sales rate range from 11.8 million to 12.3 million cars and light trucks, up from 11.76 million in September. "We're seeing younger buyers come in," said Jeffrey Schuster, forecasting director at J.D. Power and Associates. "Some of that has to do with credit availability." Compared with last October, auto sales are expected to be up around 10 percent to 11 percent. But industry executives and analysts pay closer attention now to the sequential trend, to gauge the strength of the economic recovery. Among individual automakers, Ford Motor Co., Chrysler Group LLC and Honda Motor Co. are expected to post the strongest monthly gains. In contrast with prior months, Schuster said demand doesn't appear to have flagged in the middle of the month, prompting dealers to increase their discounts. "It's not an incentive story," he said. Read more from The Detroit News.

 

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Hyundai, Kia Post Record Monthly Sales in Oct

 

SEOUL - South Korea's Hyundai Motor and its affiliate Kia Motors posted record-monthly car sales, thanks to strong overseas sales fueled by their new models. Hyundai Motor, South Korea's top maker, saw its total sales rise 10.4 percent to 320,291 units in October from a year earlier, while second-ranked Kia Motors saw its sales jump 29 percent to 192,499 units. Hyundai's sales momentum will continue in the current quarter, with the launch of more new models such as Elantra and Equus in the U.S. and Accent and Grandeur in South Korea, analysts say. Read more from Reuters.

 

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Ford Sees Sales of 13 Million

 

Mulally promises Lincoln dealers top-flight cars

 

DETROIT -- Ford Motor Co. expects U.S. annual light-vehicle sales to reach close to 13 million in 2011, as the economy rebounds. CEO Alan Mulally said October sales are shaping up to be stronger than September sales. Sales of light vehicles for October will come in at a 12-million rate, he says. In other news, Mulally said Lincoln dealers should trust that the automaker will develop top-flight luxury vehicles for them to sell. Ford recently told Lincoln dealers they have until Dec. 31 to decide whether they will make expensive renovations to their stores or give up their franchise. Ford wants to whittle down the 1,200 U.S. Lincoln dealerships it has by about 200, especially in metro markets, to be more competitive with brands such as Lexus. A smaller dealership roster and improved customer service must go hand in hand with the new products, he said. "We can't force any dealer to do anything, but we can sure show them where we're going," Mulally said. Read more from Automotive News.

 

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For GM IPO, the Government is Back-Seat Driver

 

Steve Girsky remembers sitting at his kitchen table in New York on the eve of President Barack Obama's election when he realized that General Motors was going to run out of cash. "I put down my pad," said Girsky, a banker brought in by the United Auto Workers union to report on GM's finances. "I turned to my wife and said, 'Remember this night. This is the night we figured out GM's going out of business.'" Two years after Girsky's kitchen table reckoning, the agenda for GM remains dominated by the U.S. election cycle as the automaker reaches the final stage of preparation for an initial public offering to pay some of the roughly $40 billion it owes American taxpayers. The Obama administration and GM executives say the White House has stayed good to its pledge to refrain from meddling in the day-to-day management of this 102-year-old industrial enterprise with 600,000 American workers and retirees and 12 percent of the global car market. But a review of key events leading up to GM's IPO and interviews with people involved inside and outside the company show that the U.S. government has been running key aspects of the landmark stock deal and exerting tight oversight on management decisions seen as crucial to its success. Read more from Reuters

 

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Opinion: Obama's Electric-Car Cult

 

By Charles Lane

 

General Motors' Chevy Volt is finally here, heralded by a new TV ad. "This is America, man," the narrator purrs, as the sun rises over a solitary Volt tooling along a country road. "So doesn't it make sense that we build an electric car that goes far, really far?" The pitch is lyrical, almost religious. It asks consumers to make an economic and technological leap of faith - just as both GM and the firm's biggest backer, the Obama administration, have invested, financially, politically and psychologically, in plug-in hybrids and other electric vehicles. How else to explain the fact that both Washington and Detroit persist in their costly electric-car project despite mounting evidence that the vehicles serve no particular purpose, environmental or economic? Maybe it was karma, but the Volt's launch coincided with publication of a 72-page report by J.D. Power and Associates that confirmed, in devastating detail, what many other experts have found: Electric cars still cost too much, even with substantial federal subsidies for both manufacturers and consumers, to attract more than a handful of wealthy buyers - and this will be true for at least another decade. In short, the Obama administration's commitment of $5 billion in loans and grants for electric cars is the biggest taxpayer rip-off since corn-based ethanol. It benefits no one but a few well-to-do car buyers and politically connected companies. Any "green" jobs these rent-seeking firms create will vanish when consumers reject their products and/or the subsidies cease. Read more from The Washington Post

 

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Pontiac, Maker of Muscle Cars, Ends After 84 Years

 

DETROIT -- Pontiac, whose muscle cars drag-raced down boulevards, parked at drive-ins and roared across movie screens, (went) out of business on Sunday. The 84-year-old brand, moribund since General Motors decided to kill it last year as it collapsed into bankruptcy, had been in decline for years. It was undone by a combination of poor corporate strategy and changing driver tastes. On Oct. 31, GM's agreements with Pontiac dealers (expired). At Pontiac's pinnacle, models like the GTO, Trans Am and Catalina 2+2 were packed with horsepower and sported colors like "Tiger Gold." Burt Reynolds and Sally Field fled the law in a Firebird Trans Am which raced through the 1970s hit movie "Smokey and the Bandit." By the late 1980s, though, Pontiacs were taking off their muscle shirts, putting on suits and trying to act like other cars. The brand had lost its edge. Despite spells of success during the last 30 years, Pontiac never returned to its supercharged sales of the 1960s. This year, Pontiac's sales are less than 1 percent of the 2.2 million cars and trucks GM is expected to sell. GM built the last Pontiac in May. Read more from The Associated Press.