First off, I was not the employee who sent this note to the author of a newspaper article, but certainly appreciate that he took the time to provide the facts to his local media. I thought it would be of interest to this group because of the stats quoted on hybrid sales drops. Now, for the record, I think most of you know that I am a fan and supporter of hybrid vehicles, but the numbers quoted are, in my opinion, startling. here ya go.....

The headline of your article is very misleading (Sales for GM, Ford drop sharply as Asian automakers reap gains) - I realize you probably didn't author it. Basically, Toyota was the only Asian automaker with any significant gain. Honda and the Hyundai Group combined only increased 2244 units. You mention the Highlander as a contributor to Toyota's gains. Sales were actually down 12.8 % for this model. I thought one noteworthy item in March sales was the plunge in hybrid sales. Prius was down 22.6%, Civic hybrid down 22.9% and Accord hybrid down 68.8%. Yet there is no mention of that. It is true that GM sales were down year over year, but last March was a very strong month. GM's March sales continued the rising trend that has seen month over month increases from Jan. (296,003) to Feb. (301,545) to March (365,375). Gina, I am not some GM communications employee, but a UAW member working at Wentzville, MO. But I'm concerned nonetheless about media coverage of my company and how it drives public perception. You could just have easily pointed out some of the facts I just did to balance the article. All we're looking for is fair, accurate, unbiased coverage, which is what journalism should be all about. Thank you for your time.

Peace,

Martin

 

Hi Martin,
Where do these figures come from? Is there a standard reporting place for the cars that would include not only Japanese but German and other manufacturer numbers?

Bob Wilson

 

Typically you can find industries sales comparing most recent month to same month last year (March 2006 - March 2005) reported by RL Polk. This is what is typically reported and is the basis of the reported 14.4% drop in GM sales. March 2005 was a better than average month, March 2006 was a worse than average month and far worse than March 2005. They also compare month to month (ie - March 2006 to February 2006). This analysis shows GM picking up signifcant sales on a month to month basis. Most of the sales gain has been through the sales of newly launched product like the Chevy Tahoe, GMC Yukon, Cadillac Escalade, Buick Lucerne and Chevy HHR.

I'm not certain if the drop in hybrid sales as reported was a year to year drop (March 2005 to March 2006) or a month to month drop (Feb. 2006 to March 2006). Other sources for the data are Automotive News and Ward's Automotive, but I believe the root source for their data is RL Polk. RL Polk tracks sales and registrations of all vehicles sold in the US, regardless of country of origin.

Peace,

Martin

 

Toyota's running a 5-day supply on the Prius. It's 100% controlled by limited capacity, not a lack of buyers.

 

Martin;

I'm sure that GM has tens of thousands of excellent employees both salaried and hourly, that care deeply for the company and its products, and that really want to do the right thing: design and build appealing, high-quality vehicles and for GM to prosper.

Although I have never worked for GM, I did work for an auto parts supplier (Eaton) and my son is actually doing an internship on an assembly plant. Since I understand the economic ramifications that GM has on the economy, I also want GM to succeed. Therefore I FULLY understand the letter writer's feelings about his company.

Unfortunately for the company, the problem it has today, has not been caused by the current business or labor leaderships, but by decades of neglect and complacency of past leaderships.

What I believe is that John Q Public's frustration with the current leaderships, both business and labor, is that it appears that they simply cannot agree on a shared plan to save the company. That it appears that no one is willing to sacrifice anything. Hopefully this perception is wrong.

 

specifically you can obtain all the unit sales figures from the monthly reports put out by each mfgr the day after the 'month' ends. This isn't always the 1st of the following mo ( eg I believe that April this year ends on May 1 ).

All the sales for each model are reported at that time so if one ( I do ) did a spreadsheet and tracked the vehicles that were of interest one could see how midsized sedans ( CamCords vs Fu / lans vs Sonatas vs G6/Malibus ) were doing.

One can see from month to month how hybrid sales are going and then adjust for seasonal trends. ( Jan/Feb are notoriously slow selling months ). Altogether it takes about 15 min each month.

You can also go back in time and see what happened 2-3-4 yrs ago by going to each mfgr's website to their media report sections and pull up the month by month sales figures reported back at least 10 yrs.

 

It will be very interesting to see if sales for Hybrids go back up again in April now that gas prices are rising sharply.

--A

 

My only comment on this reply is if this person want's fair and balanced facts (which I absolutely agree with), then everyone needs to use them. Comparing actual sale volumes to percentages is the same kind of number-manipulating that he (or she) is commenting on in the original media report. Saying sales are down 50% means nothing if the units are already low (say 100 per month) compared to say 10,000 per month. If we're going to compare, we need to look at volume (sales), percentage, trends, and profit margin collectively, not independently.

Case in point with the Highlander - maybe they've sold enough now to have addressed the development costs/debt and can show more profit on the books per car. So even though sales droped, they're able to book more profit on the ones they sold showing they're making more money. Saying volumes or percentages are up or down by itself says little.

I haven't met a body of data yet that I couldn't manipulate to tell the story I wanted and still have it rooted in fact. The media (IMO) is the worst offender. I don't want to bash the letter writer for their attempt to correct the report - good for them. But data like that can't be mixed up, compared, and used as the basis for any conclusion all by itself.