{"id":92254,"date":"2015-04-07T13:04:38","date_gmt":"2015-04-07T17:04:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thedetroitbureau.com\/?p=92254"},"modified":"2015-04-07T13:04:39","modified_gmt":"2015-04-07T17:04:39","slug":"nissan-and-honda-trade-potshots-and-warn-of-troubles-ahead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/2015\/04\/nissan-and-honda-trade-potshots-and-warn-of-troubles-ahead\/","title":{"rendered":"Nissan and Honda Trade Potshots \u2013 and Warn of Troubles Ahead"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Honda's John Mendel dismissed any notion that Nissan was gaining sales ground on Honda, pointing out that Nissan relies on fleet sales.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Two of the top Japanese automakers have been trading punches in recent days and, in the process, warning of potential problems to come, especially if the U.S. automotive market continues to slow down.<\/p>\n

Sales took an unexpected dip in March after five years of generally steady growth coming out of the Great Recession. That has led a number of industry observers to worry that manufacturers might make some risky moves to shore up their sales and market share.<\/p>\n

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Be a Leader!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cAs we see the industry flatten, nobody is flattening production volumes,\u201d said Honda of America Executive Vice President John Mendel. As a result, he warned, \u201cYou\u2019ll see some bloody battles out there.\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, they may have already begun, he suggested during a media roundtable at the New York International Auto Show. In an unusually harsh attack, Mendel declared \u201cbullshit,\u201d when told that Nissan Motor Co. was in position to overtake Honda, insisting his rival was only doing so by ramping up incentives and \u201cjuicing their business\u201d by putting 28% of their vehicles into fleet markets. Honda has traditionally minimized fleet sales.<\/p>\n

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Nissan-Renault's CEO Carlos Ghosn remains resolute about the plan to make company the third-largest automaker in the world.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For their part, Nissan officials were quick to rebut Mendel\u2019s claims. If anything, his company has actually reduced fleet sales by 17% this year, countered Jose Munoz, head of Nissan North America. He also stressed that the maker is largely focused on profitable commercial fleet business, rather than rental fleets.<\/p>\n

Munoz also insisted Nissan has trimmed its incentives, on average, by $700 per vehicle over the last two years.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not alone. While the average transaction price, or ATP, for the typical vehicle sold in the U.S. last month rose 2.1% year-over-year, to $32,201, an analysis by data firm TrueCar found incentives shrank, $34 on average, to $2,691. There were a few exceptions, both Nissan and Honda raising their givebacks last month, TrueCar reported.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe situation looks even more favorable\u201d during the second quarter, forecast TrueCar Vice President Eric Lyman.<\/p>\n

(Honda\u2019s Mendel hypes Civic models coming soon. For more, <\/em><\/strong>Click Here<\/a><\/span><\/strong>.)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Not everyone is quite so upbeat. With other key economic indicators, such as jobs growth, stuttering, some fear the automotive recovery may be coming to a peak \u2013 or, at the very least, slowing from the torrid pace of the last two years.<\/p>\n

March, said Nissan\u2019s Munoz was \u201ca little worse than expected,\u201d though he insists that, for now, he is \u201cnot worried.\u201d<\/p>\n

(<\/em><\/strong>Click Here<\/a><\/span><\/strong> for details about Nissan\u2019s need for additional U.S. capacity.)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Nissan Motor Co. CEO Carlos Ghosn said he was also upbeat, insisting that \u201cyou won\u2019t see anything like\u201d the years leading up to and through the Great Recession when incentives pushed to record levels, contributing to massive industry losses.<\/p>\n

The real test will come when there is the inevitable slowdown. It is difficult for manufacturers to simply walk away from market share, Fiat Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne noted earlier this year. That has traditionally led to a push upwards in rebates and other incentives as makers struggle to keep factories running at optimum speed.<\/p>\n

(To see more about the 2016 Nissan Maxima, <\/em><\/strong>Click Here<\/a><\/span><\/strong>.)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

For their part, both Ford CEO Mark Fields, as well as General Motors Chief Executive Mary Barra, have said they are willing to trim production to keep it in line with demand. Whether this shift from a push to a pull market will continue when storm clouds hover over the industry remains to be seen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two of the top Japanese automakers have been trading punches in recent days and, in the process, warning of potential problems to come, especially if the U.S. automotive market continues to slow down. To find out what the beef is about, go to TheDetroitBureau.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":92246,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"make":[],"post-state":[],"category_old":[151],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92254"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92254\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92254"},{"taxonomy":"make","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/make?post=92254"},{"taxonomy":"post-state","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post-state?post=92254"},{"taxonomy":"category_old","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/category_old?post=92254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}