What cars are selling in 2008?

The best selling car in America... for now

We all know auto sales are way down; so much so that automakers and dealers are taking some desperate measures to move cars.

While it may sound like nothing but doom and gloom, cars are still selling. It’s when we look at which ones that we get a glimpse into what consumers are demanding. And there are some surprises about what cars are popular right now.

Through August, the top selling vehicles for 2008 are: 

1. Toyota Camry
2. Honda Accord
3. Honda Civic
4. Toyota Corolla
5. Ford F- Series
6. Nissan Altima
7. Chevy Silverado
8. Chevy Impala
9. Ford Focus
10. Chevy Cobalt

Here’s what surprises me about this list: First, even though the first half of 2008 saw the highest gas prices EVER, the Toyota Prius isn’t present. I take that as a sign that consumers are smart, electing to save their money by buying traditional gas-powered cars that deliver an acceptable MPG.

Second, there are two trucks on the list. Chalk this up to aggressive discounting by Ford and Chevy, in addition to the simple fact that a lot of guys in America will ALWAYS buy trucks.

It’s no surprise that all SUVs have disappeared completely from the top 10. Families in need of hauling soccer gear and kids are sacrificing the space of an Explorer for the practicality of the Accord.

No doubt this list is posted in the corporate offices of automakers around the world, and we’ll be seeing more 4-door fuel efficient sedans in the future.

I want to know: How long will pickups stay on the top 10?

-tgriffith

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The world’s biggest Chevy dealer has closed… and keep your eyes open for more

You won't be seeing signs like this anymore!

The news that Bill Heard Enterprises has closed shop is more surprising than it should be.

It’s no secret that dealer consolidation has been a much needed action, and that fuel prices have left a major dent in the sales of high-profit trucks and SUVs.

But the fact that the world’s largest seller of Chevrolet couldn’t even keep ONE of it’s 13 stores open is surreal. Something more must be going on.

That ‘something more’ is a massive lawsuit against Bill Heard Enterprises, accusing the dealer of signature forgery and deceptive marketing; charges that could bring up to $50 million in fines.

So the credit crunch is likely a cause of failure, not THE cause of failure.

The credit crunch and gas prices are the reasons Bill Heard Enterprises is citing though, and that’s enough for me to sound the alarm for massive changes ahead in the auto dealer industry.

What kind of changes could we see as dealers begin to jump ship?

Consolidation for one. Perhaps even to the extreme: Imagine shopping for Ford, Chevy, Chrysler, Nissan and Toyota under one roof.

Imagine the current rows and rows of auto dealers lined up on main drags across America, relegated to just one or two city blocks.

Of course consolidation would not bode well for the automakers, who count on exclusivity and high volume sales from their dealers. They’d have to cut production dramatically and quickly adapt to a much leaner way of building and distributing their vehicles.

For you and me though, it means more power in how we buy our cars and eventually could lead to a shift away from the current high-pressure model of car sales.

I’d love to see going to the car dealer akin to going to grocery store… just pick out what I want, pay and leave.

I ask you: is that day coming? Would you want it to?

-tgriffith

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Hybrid Escalade? Gimme a break!

I want to talk about something that’s incredibly simple, but for some reason a lot people don’t seem to get. 

There’s so much talk right now about the importance of miles per gallon, and ways to increase the MPG of the cars being built.

The challenge so far is building a car that can be driven more miles for each gallon of gas it consumes. A popular solution that automakers, and the public, are embracing is the hybrid vehicle. While some hybrids do increase the MPG, they also cost a heck of a lot more money than comparably sized cars.

And I won’t even get into the fact that it takes years and years to even recover the cost of the car in gas savings. And what will happen to the toxic batteries once the car’s life is over?

What I want to talk about right now is even more basic than that: weight.

This is just simple physics, friends: the less something weighs, the less energy it takes to propel it.

Following so far?

I just don’t understand why the automakers in this country are so stuck on the hybrid concept, when we can achieve even better MPG than a hybrid in a gas-powered car that weighs less.

Instead, we have GM slapping a hybrid sticker on the side of a $70,000 behemoth Escalade that gets 20 MPG. Does that make sense? Think about how many non-hybrid vehicles get significantly better mileage than that.

It’s completely insane folks, and we need to step up as consumers and say, “Hey, GM, we don’t want a 6,000 pound monster that costs over 70 grand and gets 20 MPG. We want a 2,000 pound vehicle that gets more than 30 MPG.”

We can’t have it all, America, and it’s time to start making choices that have serious effects on the environment and perhaps more importantly, on our wallets.

Instead of dropping 70K on a hybrid SUV, save yourself 50 THOUSAND dollars and pick up a Mini Cooper that goes nearly twice the miles on the same gallon of gas.

What would you buy: the hybrid Escalade or the gas-powered Cooper?

-tgriffith

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