Whats more irrelevant? This thread or the auto "journalist" that wrote it.
Consumer Reports apologized to readers for recommending the problem-plagued Camry V-6.Current Camry is now 4 model years old. This same problem-plagued POS Camry has led the segment in every year including 2009.
Toyota, he said, is nearing "capitulation to irrelevance or death" and is "grasping for salvation." General Motors' decline in Canada deepened Tuesday as Toyota beat the struggling auto giant in monthly sales for the first time.
Despite a rocky year for the entire industry, Toyota Canada's sales, including the Lexus luxury brand, jumped in November from the same period last year while GM of Canada posted more losses.
It marked the first time that a Japanese-based automaker has ever topped GM, which had led the industry every month in Canada from 1950 until earlier this year.
http://www.thestar.com/business/article/733296--toyota-canada-leads-the-packAutomotive News
December 1, 2009 - 12:01 am ET
UPDATED: 12/1/09 5:38 p.m. ET
U.S. auto sales increased by less than 1 percent in November for the industry's first year-over-year gain without government incentives since October 2007.
The slight sales increase -- 35 units -- accompanied a seasonally adjusted annual sales rate of 10.5 million units, in line with the industry's “new normal” after a four-year decline and this summer's cash-for-clunkers incentive.
“Stability is good," said Jessica Caldwell, an analyst with consumer auto site Edmunds.com. "We'd like to see some growth, but I think most automakers right now would take stability.”
U.S. light-vehicle sales averaged 16.4 million units annually this decade through last year. In an accelerated decline, sales fell to 13.2 million units last year, reaching quarter-century lows by November 2008. That means today's comparisons are being measured against the worst November in decades.
October's 11.2 million SAAR reflected the first month this year in which seasonally adjusted demand passed 10 million units, not including the July and August boosts from the federal government's cash-for-clunkers program. August's U.S. sales increased 1 percent.
Along with the industrywide gain, Ford Motor Co.'s sales climbed less than 1 percent, the automaker's fourth gain in five months.
Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A.'s 3 percent advance marked the automaker's third increase in four months.Hyundai-Kia climbed 34 percent as sales of the Hyundai Accent and Elantra nearly doubled. Nissan North America shot up 21 percent, for its largest gain since June 2007. American Honda sales fell 3 percent, and
General Motors Co.'s dropped 2 percent. Chrysler plunged 25 percent.Nissan, Hyundai and Detroit automakers seem to have drawn some of their strength from fleet sales, said Jeff Schuster, an analyst with market research firm J.D. Power and Associates, although he could not give firm numbers today.
“We had them up just slightly on the retail side, so that to me suggests that it was a pretty strong fleet push,” Schuster said of Nissan.
But the industrywide increase in fleet sales isn't a bad sign, he said.
“We've just been used to some historically low fleet levels this year,” he said. “Inventory is not out of control, so it's not necessarily that we have to move a lot of product into fleet.”
As of Nov. 1, the industry had a 63-day supply of vehicles.
