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Mixed sales results, but automaker stocks rise on need for cars in Houston

DETROIT — The Big Three Detroit automakers on Friday reported better-than-expected August sales and issued optimistic outlooks for demand as residents of the Houston area replace flood-damaged cars and trucks after Hurricane Harvey, sending their stocks higher. General Motors, Ford and Fiat Chrysler posted mixed August U.S. sales, with GM up 7.5 percent and Ford and Fiat Chrysler down. Japanese automaker Toyota improved sales by nearly 7 percent, while Honda fell 2.4 percent. Still, analysts focused on the potential for Detroit automakers to cut inventories and stabilize used vehicle prices as residents of Houston, the fourth largest city in the United States, are forced to replace tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of vehicles after the devastation from Hurricane Harvey. Mark LaNeve, Ford's U.S. sales chief, told analysts on Friday that following Hurricane Katrina in 2005 "we saw a very dramatic snapback" in demand. That said, Ford sales fell 2.1 percent in August. It sold 209,897 vehicles in the United States, compared with 214,482 a year earlier. Sales were down 1.9 percent in the Ford division and off 5.8 percent at Lincoln. Demand was down for cars, crossovers and SUVs. It was not clear how many vehicles in the Houston area will be scrapped, LaNeve said, saying he had seen estimates ranging from 200,000 to 400,000 to 1 million. Ford's Houston dealers may have lost fewer than 5,000 vehicles in inventory, he said. Ford is the No. 1 automaker in the Houston market, with 18 percent share, according to IHS Markit. The company plans to ship used vehicles to Houston dealers and has "every indication we would have to add some production" of new vehicles to meet demand, LaNeve said. Investor concerns about inventories of unsold vehicles and falling used car prices have weighed on Detroit automakers' shares most of this year. Now, automakers can anticipate a jolt of demand from a big market that is a stronghold for Detroit brand trucks and SUVs. "It's got to be a positive for the industry," LaNeve said. Investors appeared to agree. GM shares rose as much as 3.3 percent to their highest since early March. Ford increased 2.8 percent at $11.34, and Fiat Chrysler's U.S.-traded shares were up 5.2 percent $15.91, hitting their highest in more than five years. GM reported a 7.5 percent increase in U.S. auto sales in August, helped by robust sales of crossovers across its four brands.

Volkswagen CrossBlue previews a three-row future, diesel-hybrid power [w/video]

Volkswagen looks to be getting ready to jump into the large three-row crossover game. The automaker has officially pulled back the curtain on the CrossBlue Concept at the 2013 Detroit Auto Show.
Designers and engineers penned the machine specifically for the Canadian and US markets, and with a plug-in diesel electric hybrid drivetrain, the hulking five-door, at least in concept form, should offer substantially better efficiency than anything else on the market. The drivetrain pairs a 2.0-liter turbo diesel four-cylinder engine with two electric motors for a combined output of 305 horsepower and a ludicrous 516 pound-feet of torque. A six-speed dual-clutch gearbox handles shifting detail, while one electric motor spins the front wheels. The second motor spins the back axle independently, make the CrossBlue a through-the-road hybrid.
As a result, the crossover can pop to 60 mph in 7.2 seconds. Perhaps more impressively, the CrossBlue can whir around on all-electric propulsion for up to 14 miles at up to 75 mph. Once the diesel four kicks in, the drivetrain can yield up to 39 mpg, though Volkswagen says the hardware can hit 89 MPGe on a full charge thanks to a 9.8 kWh lithium-ion battery pack. Check out the full press release below for more information.

Touring the Volkswagen Museum in Wolfsburg

Forgive the ribbon up top - this isn't so much of a Read This as a Look At This. Ran When Parked took a tour of the sprawling Volkswagen Museum in Wolfsburg, and while there's a spot of text about the different and unique vehicles on display in the rotating exhibits, it's largely the collection of pictures of odd, one-off VW-badged cars and vans that excites. If you're a fan of the weird and wild, this is a post you'll want to look at.
As RWP points out, this is the larger, but less busy, museum targeted purely at Volkswagen products. The smaller AutoStadt museum, meanwhile, covers a much broader swath, with products from other Volkswagen Group members. Click on over to view the extensive gallery of high-quality images from Ran When Parked.