[greenyes] SUV Sales Hit by Gas Prices

["Peter Anderson" <anderson@no.address>]

NYTIMES



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May 4, 2005
Ford and G.M. Suffer as Buyers Shun S.U.V.'s
By JEREMY W. PETERS

ETROIT, May 3 - The latest automobile sales figures show that Americans are 
increasingly wary of gas-thirsty sport utility vehicles. That was 
particularly bad news for General Motors and the Ford Motor Company, which 
both saw their sales slip last month as consumers continued their steady 
march into Asian car companies' dealerships.

Both Toyota and Nissan posted record sales gains in April, which helped push 
overall auto sales in North America up 1.8 percent.

But even as sales were expanding for the industry, they were shrinking at 
G.M. and Ford. The decline was the sharpest at General Motors, the world's 
largest automaker. G.M.'s sales fell 7.7 percent from the same month a year 
earlier, primarily because of a weak demand for S.U.V.'s. The lack of 
appetite for S.U.V.'s also hurt Ford, which sold 5 percent fewer vehicles in 
April compared with a year ago.

April's sales numbers showed no signs that the pressure on Detroit from its 
Asian rivals will let up anytime soon. That became particularly evident on 
Tuesday as Toyota reported that April had been the most successful month in 
its history. Its sales were up 21.3 percent on big gains in the number of 
passenger cars sold.

Nissan also passed a sales milestone last month and reported its strongest 
April on record. Sales increased 27 percent for the Japanese automaker, 
compared with the same month last year.

"The strength that G.M. and Ford have had has been in traditional S.U.V.'s," 
said Ron Pinelli, president of the Autodata Corporation. "Now that there's 
new product out there, consumers are defecting" from G.M. and Ford to 
companies offering the newer vehicles.

Ward's AutoInfoBank projected that vehicle sales in North America would 
reach a seasonally adjusted rate of 17.4 million units this year if sales 
continued at April's pace, which would be a solid performance for the 
industry. April's results further suggested that the industry was bouncing 
back from a slow start at the beginning of the year. Auto sales lagged in 
January and February but perked up slightly in March. The 1.8 percent 
improvement over last April is more than double the increase the industry 
saw from March 2004 to March 2005.

With sales down at G.M. and Ford, the two companies offered very different 
explanations of the impact high gas prices were having on business. This 
year, sales of S.U.V.'s have declined not only at G.M. and Ford but at 
Toyota as well, leading many inside and outside the auto industry to 
conclude that consumers were staying away from S.U.V.'s in favor of more 
fuel-efficient cars.

General Motors has long maintained that gas prices do not affect how 
consumers approach buying a car or truck. But on Tuesday, G.M.'s chief 
industry sales analyst, Paul Ballew, appeared to retreat somewhat from that 
position, saying that record gas prices were likely playing some role in 
falling S.U.V. sales.

"It's probably impacting a bit on the margin," Mr. Ballew said. Pointing to 
G.M.'s improved large truck sales, he added a caveat: "People want to 
quickly say large utility sales are down because of gas prices, and that is 
just not the cause-and-effect relationship that we can find."

By contrast, Ford's top sales analyst, George Pipas, said Tuesday that 
record gas prices were directly responsible for a sharp decline in the 
number of S.U.V.'s that Ford sold in April.

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FOR FULL ARTICLE: 
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/04/automobiles/04auto.html?ei=5094&en=29c98785beb05321&hp=&ex=1115265600&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print&position=

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