American Car Companies Are Truck Companies

I was looking at last Friday's New York Times, Auto Sales Rise 3.7%, Lifted by Upturn in Home Construction. It was way the car companies were ranked in terms of sales; GM was first, Ford was second and Chrysler was third ahead which had greater sales.

Below is an excerpt from the report/Excel file that was published by Motor Intelligence on New Vehicle Sales. The sales ranking seems to be by total sales by American or at least American domiciled automotive companies first followed by everything else. If the ranking was done purely on car and not truck sales then Toyota would be leading. American car companies should be more properly called truck companies, the pickup industry or whatever. Well-off Americans drive Asian and European cars.

	Feb 2013		Feb 2012
General Motors Corp.	224,314		209,306
Total Cars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	83,457		87,221
Total Light Trucks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	140,857		122,085
Ford Motor Company	195,310		178,644
Total Cars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	70,647		66,368
Total Light Trucks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	124,663		112,276
Chrysler LLC	139,015		133,521
Total Cars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	52,716		40,024
Total Light Trucks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	86,299		93,497
memo: Fiat	3,302		3,227
Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. Inc.	166,377		159,462
Total Cars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	96,326		99,142
Total Light Trucks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	70,051		60,320
American Honda Motor Co. Inc.	107,987		110,157
Total Cars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	60,854		59,867
Total Light Trucks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	47,133		50,290

(source New Vehicle Sales from  Motor Intelligence.)

John C Ripkoff

Chief Operations Officer

Ripkoff Investment Partners

Ripkoff.com