Chrysler : Pacifica Touring Sport Utility 4-door on 2040-cars

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Pickup prices rising at 2x industry average

We've said it before, but bears repeating: Pickup trucks are the financial engines of America's automakers. Good thing, then, that the segment is in rude health - in fact, Automotive News is suggesting that pickup truck sales are arguably healthier than they were pre-recession, even though the segment's volume is still significantly down from where it was before the bottom fell out of the US economy. That's because per-unit profits on full-size trucks are skyrocketing, outpacing the industry's average price increases by more than double since 2005. According to data from Edmunds, the average transaction price of a full-size pickup is now $39,915 - a heady increase over the $31,059 average price in 2005 - a gain of over 8 percent after inflation is factored in.
Just how important are trucks to automakers' bottom lines? Automotive News quotes a Morgan Stanley analyst as saying the Ford F-Series is responsible for 90 percent of the company's 2012 profits, and General Motors isn't far behind, with the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra twins chipping in about two-thirds of the automaker's earnings.
Automotive News points out that Detroit's automakers now have the money to invest in modernizing their full-size truck offerings, in part because they don't have the same overhead and legacy costs that pushed General Motors and Chrysler into bankruptcy. Certainly, the pickup segment has seen a lot of innovations as of late, including turbocharged V6s, coil-spring rear suspensions and active aero. Those improvements in important areas like fuel economy and ride comfort have given existing pickup buyers new reasons to upgrade. In addition, automakers are piling on the tech and luxury goodies, creating more and more high-content, high-profit models like the Ford F-150 King Ranch, Ram 1500 Laramie Longhorn and Chevrolet Silverado High Country (shown).

FCA explains, updates sales reporting in wake of investigation

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) is currently under investigation by the Department of Justice (DoJ) and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for possible misappropriation of monthly sales. Not only that but a dealer group filed a lawsuit against the auto company for allegedly bribing dealers to falsify sales reports. In the wake of these mounting pressures, FCA released a report explaining their old sales reporting methods, as well as introducing the method they will use now. The report explains that sales will break down into three main categories. The first category is simply sales made by dealers in the United States that were purchased by your typical consumer. The second group is fleet sales that were purchased directly from FCA. The final group is a mix of various sales including sales by Puerto Rican dealers, cars used for marketing, and vehicles delivered to FCA employees and retirees. The original method of recording these sales relied mainly on the New Vehicle Delivery Report (NVDR). This system allowed dealers to report new car sales at the time of sale. These sales were used to create and report a total at the end of each month. Dealers also had the ability to "unwind" sales. What this means is that a dealer could cancel the sale of a car that was reported as sold in the event that a customer couldn't purchase the car or wanted a different vehicle. This would also return factory incentives to Chrysler and end the warranty period. Fleet and other sales were not recorded through this system, and were rather included in a separate "reserve" of vehicles. FCA explained that it did not know why this was the case, but the company speculated the reason may have been to avoid reporting vehicles that hadn't made it to road use yet. FCA also emphasized that their retail sales reports do not reflect quarterly earnings. The company explained that those earnings are based on vehicles purchased from FCA, which includes sales like the cars dealers buy for their local inventories. The new method also shows FCA's long run of sales increases wasn't as long as first thought. FCA has adopted a new system for calculating sales in light of concerns and confusion. This system retains the categories listed above, but changes how it counts them. The dealer reported numbers will now only include sold vehicles and will deduct sales of unwound vehicles that month.

Google-Chrysler autonomous project will include ride-sharing

Google's new Waymo automobile-technology division might have just gotten "way mo" interesting, if you'll excuse the pun. Google, which this spring said it would work with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles on the development of a self-driving Chrysler minivan prototype, is adding a ride-sharing component to the project, Bloomberg News says, citing people familiar with the process. Representatives with both Fiat Chrysler and Google parent Alphabet Inc. declined to comment to Bloomberg. The ride-sharing service, which would compete with fellow San Francisco Bay Area-based companies such as Uber and Lyft, may debut as soon as the end of next year. Uber continues to move forward with its own self-driving efforts, launching self-driving tests (with engineers behind the wheel) in Pittsburgh in September and announcing this week that it would start tests in San Francisco. Those efforts may be delayed, however, as the state of California requires special permitting for testing out self-driving technology, and while the state has granted those permits to automakers such as General Motors, Tesla and Ford, it hasn't for Uber. Google and Chrysler said earlier this year that it would develop about 100 autonomous-driving Pacifica prototypes, but the ride-sharing service would require more of those vehicles to be built. Google's auto-technology operations, now called Waymo, have been headed by former Hyundai executive John Krafcik since September 2015. The division has reportedly brought in more executive-level personnel to speed things along. Meanwhile, Chrysler is slated to unveil an all-electric prototype version of the Pacifica at Las Vegas's annual CES show next month. Related Video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.