The final motor vehicles numbers for March are now in.
First Quarter GDP estimates will dive as sales were far below the lowest estimate.
The Econoday consensus estimate was 14.4 million, seasonally adjusted, annualized, in a range of 17.2 million to 17.8 million. Reported sales total 16.6 million, down 5.7%.
First-quarter GDP will take another hit, this time from March vehicle sales which like February and January proved weak. But the March data is unusually weak, down 5.7 in the month to a 16.6 million annualized rate that is a 2-year low. Sales of North American-made and imports both suffered, at 13.3 and 3.4 million rates, with light trucks and autos both down. Vehicle sales seem to have been pulled forward into December which was an unusually strong month and which helped the fourth quarter at the expense of the first quarter.
Don’t Worry, It’s Just a Plateau!
The amusing comment of the day comes from the Ford Chief Economist, via the Wall Street Journal.
“We think the industry is plateauing at some levels,” Ford Chief Economist Emily Kolinski Morris said. “We’re getting into a more normal phase where (industry sales are) not entirely driven by replacement demand.”
Another Plateau Opinion
I side with Stockman.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
fed will deploy ppt fo autos,ppt pushed stocks,bonds,mortgages,commodoties to record (simulated)highs,why can’t the central bank buy vehicles straight off dealers lots?then just store em out in the arizona desert like they do airplanes?or simply give evey gov’t employee a new ride,everyone wins lol
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The way the Japanese and Euros are doing it, is by mandating a crazy expensive annual inspection for all cars older than a given number of years. Smog check on steroids, sort of.
In Europe, they also keep rewriting regulations to first encourage everyone to buy diesel engines. Because “studies” (newspeak for divine revelation..) show they are the “bestest.” Then once almost everyone have one of those, have the divine powers in Brussels anoint some new “studies.” Just now showing diesels are the worstest, and a ban will be phased in. And then, as everyone have ran to that side of the court, then back again.
The “problem” is more acute in both those places, since almost noone there drives nearly far enough, to put much meaningful wear on a modern car anymore. But it will come over here soon enough as well. Bans on non electric cars entering the areas where 99% of Americans have no choice but to work as manservants licking the boots of those on the Fed’s indirect payroll, will see to that.
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Ouch
Sent from my iPhone
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No worries though! A car company that barely managed top ship an annualized total of 100,000 vehicles 1Q17 is worth $49,000,000,000 thanks to magic dust.(other wise stated $490,000 per unit shipped) Meanwhile Ford shipped 6,700,000 and is only worth $46,000,000,000
Oh! and Telsa had a “surprise” profit of $21,000,000 4Q16 (ie first ever??? – otherwise stated as $210 per unit shipped) vs Ford at $2,100,000,000 pre tax and adjustments (otherwise stated $313 per unit shipped).
Frankly I think the mattress is safer than either for my money.
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Look Peter, if you are going to simply refer to fundamentals like profits and actual NUMBERS, this fairy dust economy just ain’t going to make it! We NEED irrational exuberance, optimism, consumer confidence, blind enthusiasm and never, ever sell stock unless someone is offering MOAR, if we are going to “make it”.
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As long as the Fed manages to keep transferring all of America’s purchasing power, from those who need to buy things like cars, and to those who buy paper…. paper will become more and more “valuable” irrespective of whether it is in any way “backed” by such quaint and barbarous relics as making things or not.
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How does falling auto prices and manufacturers declining profits reflect on the self driving vehicle revolution?
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probably not as bad as the recent spate of accidents.
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a profound point you made
consumers are not even remotely aware that a car bought in 2017 will have nil resale value 5 years later in 2022. Normal depreciation schedules are going to be blown up by SD cars.
and level 4 cars are a certainty at a widespread retail level by 2022
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Anyone who can’t afford (or indeed want) a SD will simply carry on driving their regular vehicle until it dies, surely? The residual value is irrelevant.
The government in any case could well operate a cash-for-clunkers scheme again to entice people to switch between the two … thus, by magic, regular vehicles DO have a residual value.
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@Madash — despite the blog host’s assurances, I seriously doubt many people are going to want to have their car automatically crash for them.
Self-driven lawn mowers and vacuum cleaners have been available for years — and they “work” OK in designer homes with no kids. In real world homes, they have a LOT of issues. And note that mowers and vacuums are not life threatening like a car.
A car customization shop near me is doing a brisk business installing dash mounted “TV’s” and rear view camera systems into older cars. After market three point seat belt systems have been available for more than two decades. After market fuel injectors, distributors, and electronic tuning systems have been around even longer than that. After market muffler systems do a better job scrubbing exhaust fumes that the OEM parts (although I don’t care for the extra loud mufflers myself).
Anyone who tells you that you have to discard that perfectly functional steel car / truck in your driveway for a “modern” plastic death trap, is completely full of it.
If you can buy a cheap used steel vehicle, even cheaper now that dumb obama-era government programs created a glut, its very easy to spend $2-3K on “customization” and get a vehicle that is safer and better than a brand new plastic death trap.
If you live in a state dominated by socialist morons, with an auto property tax to prove it, the used vehicle will save both your life and your wallet.
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yell at clouds much ?
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I leave the hype to Elon Musk and Tesla.
Despite all his screeching and wailing and peacocking, Tesla’s total sales figure (25K vehicles) is less than the number of cars GM and Ford dump into their captive rental companies (Avis, Hertz, etc etc). Despite billions in Obama subsidies and free hollywood promoting — Telsa’s total sales numbers are a rounding error.
Musk is a self-promoting wind bag. He controls enough Telsa shares that the short sellers can’t get borrow enough to really short his stock — which only proves the stock price is not a free market price.
Driving your own car is about freedom of movement. Buses and trains are about leaving the driving to someone else.
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Off Topic: Hey Mish n case u missed it there is a good article n today’s WSJ on page b-5 “Yield Curve Shows Growth Is Still a Worry” which I remember you talking about many times before.
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I see another GMAC (Ally) bailout in the near future…
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This time China will simply buy them on the cheap, close the US factories (remaining) and put the GM label on one of their many lines of cars already in production. If our economy takes another hard dive there will be little Trump can do about failing businesses. I doubt GM is paying any taxes now so eliminating corporate taxes won’t help them.
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1/3 of new car “sales” are not sales at all. They are leases.
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Many of which are big losers as declining used car values are falling well below residual values on leases. They will try to make up those losses with much more conservative residual values on new leases, which will push up monthly costs even more putting even greater pressure on the manufacturers.
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“We’re getting into a more normal phase where (industry sales are) not entirely driven by replacement demand.”
Every phase is normal, including the collapse phase. See sine wave for details.
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Creative economic “stimulus” is urgently needed. Substitute “automobile” for “health insurance” in repealing and replacing Obamacare. Companies over 50 employees either supply new automobiles to fulltime employees or face the IRS consequences. Exempt sanctuary cities from the law to win Democrat votes.
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“The effect of the people’s agreeing that there must be central planning, without agreeing on the ends, will be rather as if a group of people were to commit themselves to take a journey together without agreeing where they want to go; with the result that they may all have to make a journey which most of them do not want at all.”
Friedrich August von Hayek
http://www.azquotes.com/quote/1103233?ref=central-planning
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““We’re getting into a more normal phase where (industry sales are) not entirely driven by replacement demand.””
I do believe that he has this backwards. Soon, replacing cars as they die after 15 years or more is going to be his entire business.
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OK, next step is they will rent parking lots to store new vehicles until the buyers start buying again (at deep deep discounts).
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My former city went and blew millions (yes millions, not a typo) building a defective car park near the train station. It turns out they used defective materials, many pathways are too narrow, and the entire structure is not ADA compliant. Oh, and in a shocking surprise the democrats gave the construction contract no-bid to one of their cronies.
The whole structure is now being rented CHEAP!! to a local car dealership to store inventory. You probably see this coming, but in case you are hopelessly stupid and can’t see the corruption, the local car dealer owner is a major democratic party donor.
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A car customization shop near me is doing a brisk business installing dash mounted “TV’s” and rear view camera systems into older cars. After market three point seat belt systems have been available for more than two decades. After market fuel injectors, distributors, and electronic tuning systems have been around even longer than that. After market muffler systems do a better job scrubbing exhaust fumes that the OEM parts (although I don’t care for the extra loud mufflers myself).
Anyone who tells you that you have to discard that perfectly functional steel car / truck in your driveway for a “modern” plastic death trap, is completely full of it.
If you can buy a cheap used steel vehicle, even cheaper now that dumb obama-era government programs created a glut, its very easy to spend $2-3K on “customization” and get a vehicle that is safer and better than a brand new plastic death trap.
If you live in a state dominated by socialist morons, with an auto property tax to prove it, the used vehicle will save both your life and your wallet.
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Also — if you followed the VW emissions / mpg scandal from last summer, then you know a decent electronic fuel injector system can easily adjust the air/fuel ratio “on the fly” to get better gas mileage or better power as your circumstances require. Doesn’t have to be adjusted for a government emissions test, it can be adjusted for outside temps, whether you are hauling a trailer, whether there is snow on the ground, etc. The after market parts (many manufacturers) have offered these features for years. They cost “too much” for Ford/GM whomever to include them in new car prices, but they are designed to be cost effective in the used car market.
And note that most consumers never get the advertised MPG rating listed by new car advertisements. Those MPG tests are done according to testing conditions set by government desk jockies, and do not reflect real world driving conditions.
If you look at MPG under real world driving conditions, a decent used car with upgraded parts will get the same (and sometimes better) MPG as a factory spec new car. The new cars are lighter (they have a lot more plastic), but the new cars have injectors and exhaust systems designed to maximize manufacture/dealer profit margins.
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I usually average 20-30% better than EPA
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20-30% better than a fictional number… So what?
The discussion that went over your head (again) was how a new car’s real world MPG would compare with an upgraded used car’s real world MPG.
You don’t say whether your 20-30% claim is for an old or a new car — so your claim (if true) is just you being a blow hard yelling at clouds.
Try writing a comment that is both relevant and based on facts — then you won’t get so many other commenters making fun of you
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are there any publicly traded repo companies?
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No, but you can always short CACC.
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FIAT has started selling cars via Amazon in Italy so they will probably be the first to sell fiats and chryslers in north america.
Amazon will buy huge numbers of vehicles from mfgrs at ptices much lower than dealers pay and undercut dealers prices hugely, sams club and costco will follow suit and traditional car dealerships will be as empty as your local Sears.
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you can already buy after market parts from US based manufacturers … online and cheap. Its been available for years. Some you can install yourself, others you may want an auto-customization ship (aka local mechanic) to do the install.
Amazon is going to fail in the car selling business. They might have cheap prices at first, but wait until you need to bring your piece of sh!t bezos-mobile in for service or maintenance.
Amazon doesn’t have a service department. Nothing. You are 100% on your own. You will have to go to the local mechanic for help, because useless yuppies and milenials don’t have any repair skills (note that protesting over gender inequality is not a marketable skill.
The kid who took shop class will make money, the milenials who got taken in $70K per year private “college” indoctrination camps will have to trade their unemployment stamps for actual service
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That would be great because I’d love to skip the brick&mortar retail auto dealer whose “services” I neither need nor want, but those dealers are kept in business by laws that prevent competitors from running them out of business.
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there are several online “3rd party” auto dealer services that compare prices between dealerships. You can also buy a new car through Costco (which buys directly from manufacturers, but only sends the car out for dealer prep)
The issue is where you go to get service on those cars. You either need a dealership or a good local mechanic… or else you had better go to technical school and spend thousands on tools and diagnostic equipment to self service your “low price” online car.
Obviously, some dealerships provide better repair service than others. Some local mechanics are awesome, some are just crooks. You have to shop around. Sometimes you can get a great deal on a car line they are about to discontinue, but you will pay dearly for service later and getting parts will involve you pulling all your hair out.
Smart car buyers look at total cost of ownership ( purchase price plus financing PLUS service / maintenance costs ). Dumb people focus on purchase price and ignore the rest.
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Amazon’s review and rating model, has worked a few orders of magnitude better than blind trust in political donors with a dealer franchise, as a means to sort the crooks from the not so, for at least a decade now. Like all laws banning anything (perhaps aside from the ones God bothered to mention to Moses), the franchise ones are not there to “pjotekt” consumers. But to rob them. For the benefit of the entrenched elite.
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Amazon’s ratings have been all over the place. The genuine consumer ratings are often very helpful, but Amazon has been plagued with a lot of reviews written by clique farms in India at the behest of the people doing the selling.
Amazon started allowing users to review the reviewers, and indicating whether a commenter had actually bought the product they were reviewing. A lot of fake reviews.
I agree though that the “honest” reviews from other consumers are helpful. So are comments from my neighbors / friends about which cars are most reliable / easy to maintain.
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Something amuck about a 100 day inventory, $300/unit profit, and $10,000/unit sales stimulus. Close the factory. Hire a competent CEO.
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Financialization and over regulation have by now largely driven all executives from outside the sales, financial and legal side of things out of the C-suite. Making things is simply not a skill that maximizes shareholder value anymore. Even for a manufacturing business.
Instead, the money is in nonsense like rearranging financing, “monetizing IP and The Brand”, offloading dead beat loans on those close enough to the Fed to be able to pawn the losses of on taxpayers etc. And it has now been that way for long enough that the entire C-suite of virtually all American companies, is staffed by nothing but mediocre dunces. Well connected, politically correct, self promoting, and ultimately clueless about anything more complex than squeaking like chicklets to mommy about “unfair” this, “stimulus” that, and “tanks in the street” this and that.
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Cars following a predictable path. New housing not. Seems that capital controls still not holding back Chinese buyers
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