Showing posts with label Canada Niche SUV Truck Sales. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Canada Niche SUV Truck Sales. Show all posts
Monday, October 25, 2010

Niche Car Sales And Niche SUV And Truck Sales In Canada - September 2010

Going back to April, average sales of the Jeep Wrangler in 2010 in Canada were standing at 1273 per month. In September 2010, Jeep Wrangler sales dropped to 602, not nearly enough to place the 2010 Jeep Wrangler among Canada's best-selling SUVs. What happened? Actually, normality kicked in. Despite the drop from 731 sales last September to 602 last month, Wrangler sales are still up 68.6% year-to-date in 2010. 

Do the poor Canadian sales of the Toyota Prius and Honda Insight spell doom and gloom for the 2011 Chevrolet Volt and 2011 Nissan Leaf in the Great White North? Out-of-the-ordinary hybrids have been mostly rejected in Canada, a country which seems to recognize (for the most part) that there's little-to-no financial benefit from owning or leasing these cars. Prius sales fell 71% in September and are down 22.6% in 2010. The more expensive Volt and Leaf are technofests which make the Prius and Insight seem Luddite-inspired, but still one must wonder: are Canadians ever interested in spending more without gaining something financially? 

The U.S. car market was seven times the size of the Canadian market in September 2010. Sales of the 2010 Toyota Prius in the United States were 74 times stronger. Honda Insight sales were 24 times stronger. Based on these figures, Chevrolet and Nissan's expectations in Canada should be low.

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Thursday, September 23, 2010

Niche Car Sales And Niche SUV And Truck Sales In Canada - August 2010

It's no longer appropriate to say there's an automotive sales war being waged between the Kia Soul and Nissan Cube. Clearly Kia's okay with allowing the Nissan Cube to live on - the Cube isn't dead (yet) - but the Soul has become such a fixture of the North American highway scene that it's been flirting with Best Selling Cars lists for the last few months. Sales of the 2010 Nissan Cube were down 64.2% in August. Sales of the 2010 Kia Soul jumped 9.3%. 

There are other vehicles for sale in Canada which aren't so easy to classify, either. At GoodCarBadCar.net, we call them Niche Cars, Niche SUVs, and Niche Trucks. They aren't necessarily incredibly unique, but they aren't direct competitors of vehicles mentioned in other Sales Stats Graphs. Apart from the Kia Soul, August wasn't a good month for these vehicles. 

Consider the hybrids from Toyota and Honda. Prius sales plummeted 73.8%; Insight sales rose by a meager 5 units to a paltry 66. Chevrolet HHR volume declines 30% from August 2009. The now defunct Chrysler PT Cruiser went from 102 sales last August to 2 sales in August 2010. Sales at BMW's Mini division fell 14.7%. Mercedes-Benz's smart car posted a 35.4% drop, slightly worse than the 34.7% drop in Volkswagen New Beetle volume.

Niche trucks and SUVs fared better in many cases. Jeep grabbed 1054 Wrangler customers in August 2010; up a fair bit from 491 in August 2009. The Toyota FJ Cruiser, Chevrolet Avalanche, Honda Ridgeline, and BMW X6 all sold at greater rates than in August 2009. Check the details in the Graphs below.

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Sunday, August 22, 2010

NICHE CAR SALES AND NICHE SUV AND TRUCK SALES IN CANADA - JULY 2010

We're down to a very few new Chrysler PT Cruisers in Canada. Production is over. Only three were sold in Canada in July. That fact doesn't make the Chevrolet HHR's lackluster showing in Canada look all that good. The HHR, a fair earner for General Motors south of the border, is deemed undesirable by the Canadian auto-buying populace. Despite possessing 1/10th the population, Canadians registered only 1/55th the HHRs in July 2010. In fact, Americans made the HHR more popular than the Kia Soul in July. Kia Canada should be pleased to know that their Soul out-sold (out-Souled?) the Chevrolet HHR by more than 7-to-1 in July. 

There are 257 Acura ZDXs on Canadian roads now, not counting the odd American tourist visiting Niagara Falls from Manhattan. By odd I don't mean "rare" or "more or less". No, I mean odd as in "peculiar" or "eccentric". To be driving an Acura ZDX, chances are you're odd: at least your car-buying habits are unique. ZDX owners formerly drove either an Isuzu VehiCross or Cadillac Allante.

I disparage so. It's just a curious thing, the purchase of an Acura ZDX. What was wrong with the less-expensive, more practical, better-looking Acura MDX? And BMW X6 owners, I ask you this: what was wrong with the less-expensive, more practical, better-looking BMW X5? 270 people made the correct choice in BMW's Canadian dealerships in July; 497 at Canadian Acura dealers. The 133 of y'all walked to the wrong corner of the showroom.

Details on niche cars, SUVs, and trucks of all kinds are in the Graphs below.
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Tuesday, July 20, 2010

NICHE CAR SALES AND NICHE SUV AND TRUCK SALES IN CANADA - JUNE 2010

chevrolet hhr panel
SUV coupes, an oxymoronic amalgam of two primarily offbeat terms themselves, haven't exactly set the Canadian Marketplace on fire. True, BMW and Acura don't require the X6 and ZDX to be world famous. These two vehicles are built using donated architecture and sell at higher price points. Even so, BMW X6 and Acura ZDX Sales Stats are abysmal. 

All GCBC Graphs point to the fact that The Good Car Guy hates localized visual inspections when used as evidence to support car sales theories, but out of the two ZDXs seen on roads near GCBC Towers, one driver didn't have enough headroom and the other was a manager at the Acura dealership. Both vehicles are members of The Bad 8 Supersize v2.0.

Every time Nissan dealers in Canada sold a Cube in June 2010, Canadian Kia dealers sold 6 Souls. Selling souls is something I strongly discourage, but the selling of Kia Souls is one reason Kia has become a serious automotive player, particularly in the value-minded market known as Canada. The advent of Scion dealers in Canada come autumn could potentially make the Cube an even rarer sight once the xB begins attracting buyers. 

And what is it about the Chevrolet HHR that Canadians despise so much? The Good Car Guy's review in the Chronicle-Herald a few years ago wasn't exactly full of praise, but it's still weird to see a car posting 35-times stronger sales in the USA: 6,004-171 in June. June 2010 sales of other niche automotive products are in the charts below.

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Related From GoodCarBadCar.net
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Wednesday, July 14, 2010

NICHE CAR SALES AND NICHE SUV AND TRUCK SALES IN CANADA - MAY 2010

Strangely, the abject failure that the Honda Insight is in the United States has not produced failure in Canada. That's not to say Canadian buyers always follow their American neighbours, not at all. It's also worth pointing out that the Insight's Canadian success is purely relative; as compared with the Toyota Prius. But the Prius, in Canada, has nowhere near the hybrid sway it does in the USA. So is the Honda Insight doing well in Canada? Uh.... no. Civics are more than 20 times as popular, for context. But is the Honda Insight within reach of the Toyota Prius in Canada? Yes, and that's not something that can be said by American Honda dealers.

The gap between Kia's Soul and the Nissan Cube is about as wide as it's ever been. Though GoodCarBadCar.net would've been glad to acquire a free Cube through the hypercube competition last year, it's not surprising that the Soul's pricing strategy, mixed with superior design and all-around Kia momentum is helping Kia conquer Nissan with ease. Come fall 2010 and Scion will try and throw a wrench into the Canadian boxy hatchback market with the xB.

As far as larger niche vehicle products go, don't we all just want a Jeep? Yes, apparently we all do.

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Thursday, May 27, 2010

NICHE SUV & TRUCK SALES IN CANADA - APRIL 2010

honda ridgeline offroad
Certain automobiles have little or no direct opposition. Automakers like to call this type of a vehicle a "niche product", always as though they were the first to locate the specific area of appeal.

Although this Graph is filled with such vehicles, accurately defining which vehicles belong and which do not is not a perfect science. Certain SUVs have been placed in specific segments, such as the Infiniti FX's spot in the Midsize Luxury SUV group. Don't place the Jeep Wrangler's success above that of the Chevrolet Avalanche; don't critique the Cadillac Escalade EXT in light of its failure to succeed where the Honda Ridgeline has. This Graph is only here as information, not for comparison. 
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