[naz]

Quote:If it was "only" the gas mileage, why are Corolla sales dropping?
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my guess is a combination of the yaris getting even better fuel econ than corolla, the supply of prius loosened up (prius is #16 best selling car), camry hybrid coming onto the market, and the new corolla coming out (IIRC the new corolla was released in late march, so a number of people thinking about a corolla were likely waiting around for the new one)

also, looking at those sales #s alone doesn't tell the whole story.. you would need to take into account the switching patterns of the consumer.

my hypothesis (which i have no way to prove with publicly available data) is that focus retail customers are coming from ford's truck and large car customers and not other auto co's small car customers (ie former F150, explorer guys realizing they need gas savings, fusion guys who realized the focus fit their needs for a lower price.. basically guys who buy into the ford brand image already)

the key doubt i have about ford's turnaround strat is i don't think their north american product portfolio and pipeline is sufficiently compelling to overcome the biases that many consumers have in place already

so far the tangible cash flow improvement appears to come mainly from cost cutting initiatives and sale of non core vehicle brands. at some point ford will have to grow its top line (without the fleet sales crutch) and i'm not convinced the product is in place for that to happen.

it is possible to spin the #s to make it look like the products are gaining traction (just like how its possible to spin the #s 6mo ago to say the US econ wasn't in a recession) but i think digging deeper the fundamentals aren't there