October Auto Sales: Those That Didn't Win Quite So Much

See, I was originally going to call this column "October Auto Sales: The Losers," as a counterpart to yesterday's "The Winners," but I thought that was too depressing. And now that the auto industry is finally, finally, really, seriously turning around (hopefully), I want to avoid connecting "depressing" with any bit of it.

Take the situation over at Toyota. Yes, the division itself saw October sales fall a bit compared to the same month last year: down 2.32 percent, to be exact. And yes, the company's financial problems have led it to pull out of Formula 1 racing, a decision that Toyota, anyway, views as humiliating. But even though the world's No. 1 automotive OEM seems on the brink of pulling a complete General Motors, it's at least battling back with an aggressiveness always missing from the old GM.

The recent news that Toyota will look to trim its efforts in the full-size/body-on-frame truck segments, although on the face another defeat, can actually be viewed as a decision to stop throwing good money after bad, especially in segments that aren't likely to see much future growth. And the same can be said about the Formula 1 situation. The U.S. is Toyota's top market, and while the racing series gets at least the same amount of buzz overseas as NASCAR gets here, American interest in F1 has been on a steady downward slide ever since Mario Andretti stopped driving for Lotus.

As a result, the billions Toyota will now save from these two decisions can be used to further improve vehicles like the Toyota Camry, Toyota Corolla, Toyota RAV4 and Toyota Prius, all still among the top 20 sellers in the American market in October.

Honda is also doing well by some measures, putting three vehicles on the top-20 list despite October sales that were essentially flat. Those products were the Honda Accord (up 17.3 percent), Honda Civic (down 14.6 percent) and Honda CR-V (up 19 percent). Again, it's worth noting that the Accord and CR-V, like the Prius and RAV4, are in two of the best-performing segments, mid-size cars and crossovers. Further, Honda has already gone through the kind of big-time cost cutting that Toyota is now dealing with, previously eliminating, for example, its plans to replace the Acura NSX supercar and as well as its V-10 engine program, and also pulling out of Formula 1 at the end of 2008.

The other brands that saw negative October sales results are a bit of a mixed bag. Mazda figures were down by 8.4 percent, with the new Mazda3 up more than 10 percent and the company's primary crossover, the Mazda CX-7, also in the black. On the other hand, demand for its recently redesigned mid-size sedan, the Mazda MAZDA6, was down, as were purchases of the Mazda MAZDA5 mini-minivan.

Things were worse at BMW, with the company notching an 18.6 percent October sales fall. The Bavarians are on an incredible product- and technology-building drive, pumping out an ever-growing number of new models sporting an ever-growing choice of powertrains. But the company's relatively high sticker prices and, shall we say, "polarizing" design choices simply aren't translating into the sales needed to support BMW's plans.

And that really covers all the major manufacturers — except for Chrysler. Fiat's American division saw October sales plummet 30.3 percent, with Dodge falling 22.2 percent, Chrysler proper off 35.6 percent and Jeep seeing a 36.8 percent sales decline. Every model was down except for the Dodge Avenger (up 13 percent) and the Dodge Grand Caravan (up 8 percent).

Now, following Chrysler's recent marathon media presentation, detailing the company's "official" future product plans, I'm thinking these kinds of numbers won't be changing significantly until at least 2011, which is when some of the new Fiat-influenced products will begin having an impact on the market. Until then, the best Chrysler can likely hope for is to establish a plateau — even if it's at October numbers — and then hang on for dear life.

The other big news to come from October has to do with the product mix. Breaking sales down by segment, the "Wall Street Journal" is indicating that only three segments saw sales increases. As one would guess, sales of both crossovers and mid-size cars were up, the former by 19.2 percent and the latter by 9.6 percent.

To me, this is further evidence of shifting customer tastes, showing buyers moving into relatively more fuel-efficient segments, even if it has become that the majority of them aren't ready for truly smaller products like those from MINI (which reported a nearly 21 percent sales drop in October) or Smart (which saw sales crater to the tune of more than 70 percent).

Oh, wait a minute. The data also show that the top segment for October, in terms of year-over-year sales numbers, happened to be large SUVs, up 39.6 percent last month.

Frankly, I can't tell if that means we ended the month with a treat or a trick.