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PUTC: Colorado not stealing Silverado sales


Bryan1

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According to Mark Williams logic....

 

"The popular idea (especially among truck-neutral auto writers) that the Chevy and GMC midsize choices would likely steal sales from their half-ton big brothers does not seem to be panning out. Combined monthly sales of the Colorado and Canyon are averaging just less than 10,000 units, yet Silverado and Sierra sales are both up for the month, and solidly in the green for the year. Much of that growth is happening in the half-ton segment."

 

link: http://news.pickuptrucks.com/2015/04/best-selling-pickup-trucks-march-2015.html

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There is obvious pentup demand from previous Chevy small truck owners (and some Ranger owners no doubt). The question is still whether it's sustainable and whether the full sized trucks gained any sales from increased incentives.

 

Common sense tells you that some portion of Canyorado sales would come at the expense of Silvererra. Whether it's based on cost, size or mpg (slight improvements on all 3 - nothing earthshattering).

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Mr. Williams is correct. Demand continues to be very strong for Colorado

 

But how would he know by looking at total sales that the Silverado did not lose any sales to the Colorado? Silverado sales may be up because they were terrible last year, down 18.4% in January 2014.

Edited by Bryan1
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Ram sales are within 4,000 units of the Silverado, and during a model changeover with limited stock, the F150 is outselling the Silverado+Sierra.

 

I do not believe that full size GM sales are unaffected by this.

 

No, Silverado is still about 25k ahead of Ram: 126,694 to 101,511 (from the PUTC link in the first post.

 

The rest of your post is spot on.

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Ultimately, the math that matters is on profit, not sales volume. We don't have enough info to conclude one way or another but here are the anecdotal evidence, which I freely admit supports my opinion that midsize truck is a fools errant unless you are Toyota:

 

1. US spec Colorado/Canyon received pretty substantial revision from the global version, which was largely a rebadge job of Isuzu Rodeo pickup. The capital investment is probably moderate but still substantial.

 

2. GM retooled the fullsize van factory to build the Colorado/Canyon. This also resulted in GM exiting the light duty van segment, which is generally very profitable for Ford at least... not sure about GM. Is midsize pickup truck more profitable on a per unit basis than 1500 vans? I think Ford says van is more profitable but GM?

 

3. GM's fullsize pickup didn't have a very good launch... sales were down almost 20% in early 2014 because GM withdrew sales support on the new model but sales recovered somewhat after rebate started flowing again in the later part of the year. So take the comparison to prior year with caution.

 

4. Despite the sales support for fullsize pickup, it is still likely commanding higher margin than any midsize pickup truck. It's been often repeated factoid that average margin on domestic brand fullsize pickup trucks is somewhere just shy of $10,000. Given the lower MSRP of Colorado/Canyon, it's unlikely to match the Silverado margin.

 

5. Who is buying Colorado/Canyon? Fullsize buyers downsizing? Ranger owners coming out of witness protection? Tacoma owners fed up with frame rust? I don't know but GM surely has data that shows what vehicles are being traded in for Colorado/Canyon. The fact that they haven't been leaking words that Colorado/Canyon buyers are conquests from Ford and Toyota leads me to think it is mostly previous GM owners. This may support the short term pent up demand theory. But long term viability?

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Want salt with ya crow?. So GM goes into a market that Ford's not in (with sales success) and it's all "wrong", thought you guys were all about profits.... .

Even with the combination of GM mid size and Half tons, they barely squeak past F Series which still recovering from changeover.

 

 

And by the way, the combined sales of GM's Half Ton trucks almost equals the current sales of Transit.

The difference is that Transit starting price is much higher at +$29K..

 

Nobody is denying there isn't a market for mid sized trucks, it's just nowhere as big as it used to be

so Ford chose to invest in Transit production instead of Ranger, where the return is no doubt much better...

 

We won't talk about GM Express 1500 and how it couldn't afford a new one of its own....

Edited by jpd80
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...5. Who is buying Colorado/Canyon? Fullsize buyers downsizing? Ranger owners coming out of witness protection? Tacoma owners fed up with frame rust? I don't know but GM surely has data that shows what vehicles are being traded in for Colorado/Canyon. The fact that they haven't been leaking words that Colorado/Canyon buyers are conquests from Ford and Toyota leads me to think it is mostly previous GM owners. This may support the short term pent up demand theory. But long term viability?

Ward's Auto ran an article back in February that stated Chevrolet was reporting a 41% conquest rate for the Colorado with most conquest sales being people stepping out of competitors' CUVs. The Chevrolet Colorado's strongest market is Los Angeles. That article also stated that Chevrolet wasn't experiencing any type of noteworthy cannibalism of Silverado sales as a result.

Edited by OHV 16V
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all about profits.... .

 

I think bzcat & JPD just covered the profit angle.

 

Ford's selling vans instead of midsize trucks, and likely at a significantly higher ATP.

 

And while it's impossible to say where GM's half-ton sales would be sans Canyonado, here's a tidbit worth digesting:

 

In August of last year, before Ford took the Dearborn plant down for retooling, Ford sold 68,109 F-Series. That same month, GM sold 69,048 Silverados & Sierras.

 

Granted, comparing month-to-month snapshots is a bit fraught; still, it will be very interesting to see if Silverado/Sierra numbers continue to lag F150 numbers by an appreciable amount, as that would suggest a not insignificant amount of volume cannibalization.

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...Granted, comparing month-to-month snapshots is a bit fraught; still, it will be very interesting to see if Silverado/Sierra numbers continue to lag F150 numbers by an appreciable amount, as that would suggest a not insignificant amount of volume cannibalization.

Don't you think, given Ram's not-insignificant sales volume increase that it's quite possibly not cannibalization from the Colorado/Canyon as much as losing sales to Ram? Those Ram sales are coming from somewhere, and since F-Series doesn't appear to be losing any volume, and let's be honest, Toyota and Nissan don't really have that much to give in the first place, that Ram's increase is coming at GM's expense?

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Don't you think, given Ram's not-insignificant sales volume increase that it's quite possibly not cannibalization from the Colorado/Canyon as much as losing sales to Ram? Those Ram sales are coming from somewhere, and since F-Series doesn't appear to be losing any volume, and let's be honest, Toyota and Nissan don't really have that much to give in the first place, that Ram's increase is coming at GM's expense?

I agree that a significant portion of sales loss would be from Ram. But, you also need to factor if the Silverado is a truly competitive product. Would the capital invested into the Colorado been better invested into the Silverado. Silverado will always average a higher ATP than the Colorado. Surely GM would rather sell more silverados

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Don't you think, given Ram's not-insignificant sales volume increase that it's quite possibly not cannibalization from the Colorado/Canyon as much as losing sales to Ram? Those Ram sales are coming from somewhere, and since F-Series doesn't appear to be losing any volume, and let's be honest, Toyota and Nissan don't really have that much to give in the first place, that Ram's increase is coming at GM's expense?

 

It's possible--although if FCA were getting a lot of Chevys in trade, you'd think they'd have something to say about it.

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Want salt with ya crow?. So GM goes into a market that Ford's not in (with sales success) and it's all "wrong", thought you guys were all about profits.... .

I wouldn't crow too much there trollboy. We've only sold 4, 2 Colorado's and 2 Canyons. Not exactly burning up the streets.

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I wouldn't crow too much there trollboy. We've only sold 4, 2 Colorado's and 2 Canyons. Not exactly burning up the streets.

Aw 93' big-wheel back with the insults again?. You sold 5 pickups and now you're the truck guy. Tell me how many Fords you didn't sale so they can pull the plug on it, "expert".
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What it ultimately boils down to is that we really don't know what is happening with GM' midsized sales...they look impressive at first , if you can say 10K a month is impressive, while barely outselling the outdated Frontier (I haven't seen one of them...in forever?) last month and not coming close to the Tacoma sales?

 

If they keep at this rate, 120K or so sales between two nameplates really isn't that impressive.

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If Ford had the spare capacity in NAFTA zone, I'm sure they'd take another serious look at Ranger. But ultimately, midsize truck is Toyota's turf... anyone that wants in will need to contend with Tacoma. The segment was shrinking for many years so if GM can expand the size of the market, then good for them, and potentially good news for Ford as they start thinking about T7 Ranger.

 

GM's deck of cards were different and they choose midsize pickup truck instead of fullsize vans. So if anyone is serious about looking at how the math will work for GM in the long run, that's where you need to start.

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