Last month the RL sold 548 units, down from 719 last year; a 17.9% drop. For the year thus far, it is 1,339 for 2008 & 1,547 for 2007. Only a 12.6% drop for the year ... not saying sales are good but @ least they are stable.

 

Alrighty! Looking (?) forward to seeing this months sales. Think Acura will break 500 units for April?

 

It was a tough month in March for a variety of reasons. Acura's in for a bumpy ride this year... I'd say until November.

 

Sales are pretty stable, even increasing, for the last few months. Still waiting to see whether the new model makes a difference in a few months or whenever it's released.

 

Car sales are tanking across the board. So this is pretty respectable based on previous performance.

I wonder if the slowed economy and credit retractions may make Acura's value again more appealing in the premium segment.

That is if value exceeds fugly for 2009 shoppers.

 

There were 2 extra selling days in 07' vs 08', so the monthly total comparison is a bit skewed.

With all the talk of the Jaguar XF, interesting to see that Jaguar's daily sales rate was up over 12%. Maybe Ford should have held off the deal with Tata until they had a few months of sales numbers. Could have sweetened the deal. Come to think of it, the sale isn't supposed to be final until the second quarter, so maybe Ford is hedging their bets.

 

Honda overall is feeling the least pain.

Toyota has introduced many larger vehicles (trucks) with bigger engines. Even the V6 Camry is being outsold by the hybrid Camry.

Perhaps Honda's resistence to larger engines is indeed wise? And IF a V8+ is introduced for the Acura brand...will sales volumes support the engineering and production costs?

Interesting times....

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll...804020397/1148

 

Toyota sells the Prius so they can sell the trucks. Recent reports indicate that Japan paid for 100% of the hybrid development costs... this from the guy who worked for Toyota for 20 years and is now with Chrysler.

Reading the reviews of the new TSX shows that a car weighing 3,417 pounds is powered by an inline 4 cylinder making 201 HP. A recent review of the RDX shows worse-than average fuel economy. Honda should use a 2.5 liter V6 in these cars. Fuel economy would probably increase slightly and torque would certainly be better.

An interesting article about diesels:
http://www.caranddriver.com/features...t_of_it_column

 

It's why diesel will never catch on here. Oil refining capacity is set up to produce mostly gasoline, and most of the diesel produced is spoken for by industrial users. It's extremely expensive to convert refiners over to produce more diesel as well. There hasn't been a new refinery built in the U.S. in over 30 years I believe - and the oil companies have no incentive to build more. It's one of the reasons gas prices are so high. Refiners are maxed out in terms of capacity, so any unexpected outages really crimp capacity. If there are more diesel cars competing for a finite amount of diesel fuel, expect diesel prices to skyrocket.

 

Actually, oil companies want to build more refineries but it is impossible to do so:

But getting an oil refinery built is next to impossible, hence the 30-year construction drought. There will always be environmental activists who fight any new proposed refinery, regardless of where it might be located and how environmentally safe it is. And our environmental rules give them the upper hand.

The environmental impact-report process mobilizes the "not in my back yard" elements to oppose any proposed refinery, but it does not mobilize people or groups who are looking at national energy needs. You wind up with a very lopsided discussion where potential problems are thoroughly and perhaps overly represented, but the only group pointing out the benefits of the refinery is the "evil" oil company asking to build it - even though every automobile driver would benefit.

Consider the example of Arizona Clean Fuels, which has been trying to build a small refinery outside Yuma for almost 10 years. It took five years just to get air-quality permits. Now they hope to be operational in 2010, 15 years after they started the project.

http://www.reason.org/commentaries/moore_20050901.shtml