In December, Ford Motor Company's U.S. sales that include the Ford, Lincoln, Mercury and Volvo brands, totaled 139,067, down 32.4 percent compared with a year ago. Despite the decline, Ford estimates that the market share of the Ford, Lincoln and Mercury brands were 14.6 percent in December, up 0.7 of a point versus a year ago. For the full year, FoMoCo's sales were down 20.7 percent to 1,988,376, from 2,507,366 percent a year ago.
Once again, General Motors recorded a significant drop in U.S. sales in December delivering 221,983 vehicles, down 31 percent compared with a year ago. GM's December car sales of 87,506 units were off 25 percent while its truck sales of 134,477 units were down 35 percent compared to the same month last year. Despite the plunge, GM officials seemed happy to report that December deliveries were up 30 percent compared with October and up 43 percent compared with November."Given the ongoing challenges and the difficult market environment, we were very encouraged to see a volume rebound for GM in December compared with both October and November," said Mark LaNeve, vice president, GM North America Vehicle Sales, Service and Marketing.
"We are building more vehicles than ever that provide great value and Americans enjoy owning. That is why, for the year, we are seeing our market share holding steady at just above 22 percent. That's 5 percentage points more and 760,000 vehicles more than our nearest competitor," added LaNeve.
For the year, GM sold 2,980,688 vehicles in the U.S. -down 23 percent compared with 2007, which allowed the company to maintain a market share just above 22 percent.
Strengthened by a $6 billion federal bailout, General Motors financing arm GMAC LLC, has not only resumed lending to customers with low credit scores in the U.S., but has also announced new reduced rate financing for up to 60 months on select cars and trucks. The rates that range from zero interest to 5.9 percent annually, are available to qualified buyers today through January 5, 2009 on many 2008 and select 2009MY vehicles (see the complete list after the jump). Many of the vehicles listed have can also be financed with cash rebated ranging from $500 to $4,250."We're very excited to offer this reduced rate financing through GMAC to encourage our customers to get back into the game," said Mark LaNeve, vice president, GM North America Vehicle Sales, Service and Marketing. "This enables even more qualified customers to finance through GMAC at their local GM dealership, and provides additional financing capacity with conventional and reduced rate APRs for our dealers to make sales."
2008MY vehicles and offers for qualified buyers:
- 0% APR for up to 60 months on '08 Chevrolet TrailBlazer; GMC Envoy; and Saab 9-3, 9-5, 9-7X
- 0.9% APR for up to 60 months on '08 Buick Lucerne
- 1.9% APR for up to 60 months on '08 GMC Yukon and Yukon XL; Chevrolet Tahoe, Suburban and Avalanche; Cadillac CTS, SRX, Escalade, DTS, STS and XLR
- 2.9% APR for up to 60 months on '08 Buick Lacrosse; HUMMER H2 and H3
- 3.9% APR for up to 60 months on '08 Chevrolet Equinox, Colorado Ext and Crew cab and Light Duty Silverado; Pontiac Torrent; GMC Canyon Ext and Crew cab, and Light Duty Sierra
- 4.9% APR for up to 60 months on '08 Saturn Astra and Sky; Pontiac Solstice; Chevrolet Corvette and Heavy Duty Silverado; and Heavy Duty GMC Sierra
2009MY vehicles and offers for qualified buyers:
- 3.9% APR for up to 60 months on '09 Chevrolet Cobalt; Pontiac G5; and Cadillac CTS
- 4.9% APR for up to 60 months on '09 Pontiac G6; Chevrolet Malibu, Light Duty Silverado and HHR; Saturn Aura; and Light Duty GMC Sierra
- 5.9% APR for up to 60 months on '09 Chevrolet Avalanche and Heavy Duty Silverado; and Heavy Duty GMC Sierra
American taxpayers will be glad to know that the folks over at cash-strapped Chrysler LLC thank them for the approved government loan of $4 billion that they received to help bridge the current economic crunch. In fact, Chrysler is so thankful that it created a new "Thank You America" print advertisement.First of all, if Chrysler wanted to be accurate, it should have thanked the Bush Administration and their political supporters in their decision to offer both Chrysler and GM a bailout loan - we didn't see any American taxpayers vote on the matter, did you? If you ask us, Chrysler LLC's decision to spend money -it doesn't matter how much- on a print ad thanking Americans for bailing them out was an unnecessary move. With so many media outlets of all sorts, a press release is more than adequate these days to get your message out to millions of people. Total waste of money that could have gone into saving a job or two.
General Motors Europe and Spain's Iberdrola which is a leading private electric utilities worldwide and the largest renewable energy operator in the world, have signed an agreement to jointly perform a feasibility study to examine the technical requirements of a recharging infrastructure for the integrated marketing and viability of plug-in electric cars like GM's forthcoming Volt. The main areas of the study will be carried out in Spain and the United Kingdom with the two firms analyzing the requirements for the location of plug sockets in private homes and offices, and public or private parking, and for the installation of electricity meters.
In a joint-statement, GM Europe and Iberdrola said that in case the outcome of the viability study is positive, "both companies anticipate to evaluate possible agreements with the different European, national, regional and local governments, to support the implementation of this initiative".
Japan's Suzuki Motor Corporation today announced a high-level management change with the appointment of Osamu Suzuki as the company's new president and COO -short for Chief Operating Officer. Osama Suzuki, who is also the firm's chairman and CEO (Chief Executing Officer) replaces Hiroshi Tsuda, who recently resigned due to health reasons, but will continue with SMC in the role of advisor. Furthermore, Suzuki appointed Senior Managing Executive Officers Takashi Nakayama, Takao Hirosawa and Minoru Tamura as new representative board members.
