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Despite premium carmakers going downmarket, luxury auto sales stick at 10-11%

According to research conducted by global information company IHS Automotive, the leporine birthing of new models by luxury manufacturers over the past six years hasn't increased their market share in the US. Even as car sales reached 15.6 million units, IHS says what's happened instead is that luxury buyers are merely moving from one brand to another, moving from larger luxury vehicles into hot segments like compact luxury crossovers or leaving the market at the same rate as other buyers enter.
Whether broken out by makes or by segment, market share has rollercoastered inside a narrow band from 10.5 to 11.5 percent since "at least" 2008. Closer investigation reveals the shifting boundaries in the aspirational pond, with brands like Mercedes-Benz and Audi gaining territory as Lexus and Lincoln lost it, and Saab and Hummer were buried, dead, under it. One neat note is that Tesla has gone from a share of zip to .12 percent.
The subcompact and compact crossover segments show growth, with those little high-riders jumping from .3 percent to 1.16 percent of overall industry sales. Their rise, though, is concomitant with the decline of four other segments: compact and midsize cars and fullsize cars and SUVs. We think the next few years that will tell if the small-car expansion can overcome the large-car retraction, with a phalanx of smaller offerings like the CLA only recently hitting the market and others like the GLA, Macan and Q1 doing so in the near future.

Honda China struggling with high-end Accord because Chinese covet German cars, too

It's not particularly unusual to see cheap cars in China, or those with designs stolen from foreign competitors, but increasingly the best-selling vehicles there would be very recognizable to just about any auto enthusiast. There appears to be one fact of life whether looking at car buyers in Sacramento, Stuttgart or Shanghai: People who can afford to buy premium cars often look first at the Germans.
Honda recently thought that it could challenge this perceived wisdom by including a premium Accord in the ninth-generation sedan's Chinese launch last year. The market-exclusive version was priced against the Audi A4. The venture failed, miserably.
According to Automotive News China, sales for the new Accord in China are down 37 percent through May of this year. Honda's overall sales are actually up by about 11 percent there on the strength of smaller, less profitable models. However, the company is still off its forecast 19-percent rise.

Audi looking for Tesla-style, non-traditional way to sell EVs

As part of Audi's notable EV emphasis at the Los Angeles Auto Show last week, there was a bit of a secondary discussion on just how the automaker might get to the point where 25 percent of all of its sales would be electric vehicles. After all, no major automaker has figured out how to crack into the double-digit percentage of plug-in vehicle sales. The problem might be, as The New York Times noted recently, that traditional dealerships just don't know how to sell EVs. While no one at Audi was saying that the automaker is going to open up its own EV stores, like Tesla has, but two Audi of America executives were certainly warm to a different style of how an automaker can encourage EV sales. Filip Brabec, AoA's director of product management, said that Audi is at least considering making changes, including some sort of different dealership experience and perhaps a new kind of test drive. "The traditional automotive approach is not necessarily working," Brabec said. "A lot of it has to do with the complexity of the product and the complexity of the offer and it's difficult, I think, to bring that into a classical dealership and sort of treat is as another car and off we go. I think there needs to be some differences in how we go in the future." AoA president Scott Keogh said that Tesla has shown the rest of the industry how to make selling EVs a complete experience. It's not just about the car, he acknowledged. "I think we have to give Tesla credit where it's deserved," he said. "I think the charging network, at least from a public relations point of view, is quite strong and that's definitely added to the message." So many automakers want to have that, "Tesla fighter," as we've heard over and over recently, but Keogh hinted that Audi could do a better job than Tesla is doing today. "I think they've done a good job of looking at the full package. I think we have some resources and the network and everything else that we can put a fuller package together." The most important part is getting people into the cars, Brabec said. "I think exposing consumers to EVs, letting them experience EVs is another big aspect, and probably different than we have today, because test driving a car today is a very conventional thing. It's probably not going to be as conventional with EVs, particularly if you've never been in one before." We can't wait.