Average price of new car hits record

The average transaction price for a new vehicle set a record of $31,252 in August, according to TrueCar.com, up 3.2% from a year ago.

The new high is up 0.5%, or $164, from July, the auto data research and shopping site reports.

The record was powered by five car companies that each had record prices in the month: Chrysler, Ford, Honda, Nissan and Volkswagen.

TrueCar's transaction price is meant to include everything – price of the vehicle, discounts, add-ons, taxes and license fees – all the amounts that total to the out-the-door price. Read more >>

Japan carmakers to cut China production by half

Sales have plunged at Japanese car makers since violent protests and calls for boycotts of Japanese products broke out across China in mid-September over the Japanese government's purchase of a group of disputed islands in the East China Sea from their private owner.

Nissan will suspend the night shift at its passenger car factories in China and operate only during the day, the business daily said. Nissan has two passenger car factories in China, in Huadu and Zhengzhou, with two lines each. A Nissan spokesman declined to confirm the report.

Toyota and Honda plan to cut China production to about half normal levels by shortening working hours and slowing down the speed of production lines, the Nikkei said without citing a source. A Honda spokeswoman said she was checking the report. Read more >>

Strikes & Labor Unrest Ignite Across China

Image by Cain and Todd Benson via Flickr

nytimes.com
KEITH BRADSHER
A Labor Movement Stirs in China
Striking workers at a Honda auto parts plant here are demanding the right to form their own labor union, something officially forbidden in China, and held a protest march Friday morning.

Meanwhile, other scattered strikes have begun to ripple into Chinese provinces previously untouched by the labor unrest.

A near doubling of wages is the primary goal of the approximately 1,700 Honda workers on strike here in this southeastern China city, at the third Honda auto parts factory to face a work stoppage in the last two weeks.

A chanting but nonviolent crowd of workers gathered outside the factory gates on Friday morning and held a short protest march before dissolving into a large group of milling young workers who filled the two-lane road for more than a block outside the factory.

They were met by black-clad police with helmets, face masks and small round riot shields. But the workers showed no signs of being intimidated. The police marched off at midmorning, leaving the workers to block the road into the small industrial park next to a eucalyptus-lined muddy canal that runs past the factory.

The workers dispersed about an hour after the police left and remained on strike.

Management helped defuse the march by distributing a flier that essentially offered 50 renminbi, or about $7.30, for each of the eight days that the factory was closed beginning in late May as part of a nationwide shutdown of Honda manufacturing set off by a transmission factory strike. Management previously wanted to treat the shutdown as unpaid leave, workers said.

Only 50 or so striking workers showed up outside the factory after lunch on Friday. Managers distributed a new flier urging them to return to work in the afternoon and saying that all would be forgiven if they did.

But the flier contained no new offer on wages, and there was no sign that any workers were going back into the factory. One worker said that the newly chosen factory council was not holding any negotiations because it could be physically dangerous for all of the representatives to gather in one place with management and the authorities.

The worker, an activist in the labor unrest here, said that the strikers were waiting for a genuinely new offer from management before holding any more talks.

This latest strike, which started Wednesday morning, has taken on political dimensions.

The strikers here have developed a sophisticated, democratic organization, in effect electing shop stewards to represent them in collective bargaining with management. They are also demanding the right to form a trade union separate from the government-controlled national federation of trade unions, which has long focused on maintaining labor peace for foreign investors.

“The trade union is not representing our views; we want our own union that will represent us,” said a striking worker, who insisted on anonymity for fear of retaliation by government authorities or the company.

Geoffrey Crothall, the spokesman for China Labour Bulletin, a labor advocacy group based in Hong Kong that seeks independent labor unions and collective bargaining in mainland China, expressed surprise when told how the Honda workers here in Zhongshan had organized themselves. “It does reflect a new level of organization and sophistication” in Chinese labor relations, he said.

A Honda spokesman declined to comment on the details of the strike. The Chinese government has been relatively lenient in allowing coverage of the labor unrest because Honda is a Japanese company, and some anti-Japanese sentiment lingers in China as a legacy of World War II.

Despite unusual forbearance in allowing the various strikes so far, the Chinese government has shown no interest in tolerating unions with full legal independence from the national union.

Dozens of workers gathered in clumps shortly before sunset on Thursday in front of the sprawling parts factory and outspokenly criticized local authorities for seeming to side with the company.

The workers said that large numbers of police officers had been positioned in the factory on Wednesday and Thursday in an attempt to intimidate them. The two other Honda parts factories shut down by walkouts in recent weeks have reopened after workers were promised large pay increases.

The Chinese government has not allowed unions with full legal independence from the national, state-controlled union. But the government has occasionally finessed the issue by letting workers choose their factories’ representatives of the national union, or by allowing the creation of “employee welfare committees” in parallel with the official local units, said Mary E. Gallagher, a China labor specialist at the University of Michigan.

But these exceptions have tended to be in less prominent industries like shoe and garment manufacturing, and not in bastions of heavy industry like automaking. More...

Auto Sales Plunge

September Auto Sales Plunge in Aftermath of Cash for Clunkers; SAAR at 9.2M units, LDV Sales Down 41% from August, Hybrid Sales Down 48%

Green Car Congress

Reported hybrid sales by month. Click to enlar

In the aftermath of the summer sales boom fueled by the US Cash for Clunkers program, September 2009 light duty vehicles sales dropped back to pre-incentive lows. With 745,997 cars and light duty trucks sold in September, according to Autodata, sales were down 22.7% year-on-year, and off 41% from August. The Seasonally Adjusted Sales Rate (SAAR) in September dropped back down to 9.22 million units, from 14.09 million units in August.

Reported sales of hybrids in September dropped 4.1% year-on-year to 19,977 units. (Reported sales do not include sales of the Mercedes S400 hybrid, which went onsale in the US late in August.) Compared to August results (38,701 units), however, hybrid sales dropped 48.4%. New vehicle market share for reported hybrid sales in September dropped back down to 2.7% from a high of 3.6% in July.

Hybrid new vehicle market share by month. Click to enlarge.

September 2009 had 25 sales days compared to 24 days for September 2008. All comparisons in this post are based on actual volume, not adjusted day sales rate.

Toyota. Toyota Motor Sales (TMS) reported September sales of 126,015 vehicles, a decrease of 12.6% by volume from last September. TMS posted September sales of 14,585 hybrid vehicles, down 5.3% from September 2008.

The Prius posted September sales of 10,984 units, up 1% from September 2008, but down 42% from August 2009. Camry Hybrid posted 872 units in September, down 68.7% year-on-year, and Highlander Hybrid posted 269 units, down 70.8% year-on-year.

September 2009 SAAR. Data: Autodata. Click to enlarge.

The Lexus Rx hybrid posted 1,168 units, up 57% year-on-year; the GS hybrid posted 38 units, up 31% year-on-year; and the LS 600h posted 12 units, down 74.5%. The new HS250 posted 1,242 units.

Ford. In September, Ford reported a 6% drop in sales year-on-year. Ford estimates it gained over 2 points of market share versus last year in September and the third quarter.

Ford sold 2,138 hybrids in September, up 116% year-on-year. Sales of the Escape/Milan hybrid were down 11.3% year-on-year to 878 units, but the Fusion and Milan hybrids accounted for 1,260 units.

Honda. American Honda Motor Co., Inc., posted total September vehicle sales of 77,229, a decline of 20% year-on-year.

Honda hybrid sales dropped 6% year-on-year to 1,898 units. Sales of the Civic Hybrid plunged 92.5% to 152 units, but the new Honda Insight posted 1,746 units.

General Motors. General Motors dealers in the United States delivered 155,679 light duty vehicles in September, down 45% year-on-year. GM retail sales were down 46% while fleet sales declined 43%.

A total of 1,011 GM hybrid vehicles were delivered in the month, down 48.3% from September 2008.

Nissan. Nissan North America, Inc. (NNA) reported September 2009 sales of 55,393 units versus 59,565 units last year, a decrease of 7%.

Sales of the Altima Hybrid dropped 26.6% year-on-year to 345 units.