2010 Cadillac CTS Leads Overlooked Underperformers
The 2010 Cadillac CTS is one of the most lauded sport sedans on the road today and was the beneficiary of some significant upgrades for the current model year. A new standard engine'”a 3.0-liter direct-injected V-6'”brought added power, fuel efficiency and refinement, while features like adaptive forward lighting and an enhanced nav system added even more premium features. Heck, Cadillac even added a whole new body style, the CTS Sport Wagon, and has another, the CTS Coupe, on the way.
But these additions haven't added much in the way of sales for General Motors. The CTS' sales numbers were off 15.4 percent in April and are down 21.1 percent on the year. It must be particularly disappointing because this doesn't reflect any kind of division-wide failings. The Cadillac SRX'”now the best-selling Caddy'”is hoovering up customers to the tune of a 587.3 April sales gain, while even older products, like the Cadillac Escalade and Cadillac DTS, were up more than 20 percent last month.
Which introduces our Krome on Cars theme for the day: This spring's mystifying underperformers! Car like the Toyota Yaris, for example. Thanks to Toyota's extensive April incentives, every single Toyota division product saw a sales gain last month except for two full-size, small-volume SUVs (the Toyota Sequoia and Toyota Land Cruiser) and the Yaris. Most of these garnered big-time boosts, too. The Toyota Camry moved ahead just a bit over 10 percent, but on the car side, the Toyota Corolla, Toyota Venza, Toyota Avalon and Toyota Prius all saw jumps of more than 28 percent.
Now, the Yaris is one of the very few Toyotas that hasn't been recalled'”yet'”and it qualifies for all the automaker's big incentives, but its sales still fell off by more than 50 percent last month. At the same time, comparable rivals like the Chevrolet Aveo and Nissan Versa were up by 28.7 percent and 43.9 percent, respectively.
The Yaris' inability to hold its own among the subcompacts is almost as curious as the sudden plateau hit by the Honda Civic in the next size class upward. The Civic is still getting plenty of volume and remains among the top 10 best-selling vehicles in America, but sales were off 4.6 percent in April and have seen a meager 3.5 percent increase during the first third of the year.
That means even as Honda was underperforming the industry last month, with overall sales up about 12.5 percent in a market that was up more than 19 percent, the Civic itself was underperforming Honda. Here, the interesting comparo is to the Ford Focus, as both compacts are somewhat older designs that are available in both coupe and sedan configurations. But unlike the Civic, the Focus is seeing some surprisingly robust numbers: The Blue Oval product is up 38.2 percent sales-wise on the year, following a 20.7 percent increase in April.
Some of the difference here is no doubt the result of the overall positive momentum at Ford dragging Focus sales along in its wake, but you have to wonder how strong'”or at least how sustainable'”that current is going to stay. In an eye-popping stat that seems to have escaped the eyes of many, the Ford Fusion hype-mobile hit ye olde brick wall last month. Sales of the Fusion were up a bare 3.5 percent in April. To put this into context, despite that relatively poor showing, the first three months of the year were so strong for the Fusion that its year-to-date sales increase remains above 50 percent.
This situation is a bit easier to understand, although the explanation won't make Ford'”or most other mid-size sedan competitors'”very happy. Because the Fusion wasn't the only player in this segment to have some trouble last month. While the Camry, as I mentioned above, underperformed the market as well, and the Nissan Altima was up a so-so 22.9 percent, the new kid on the block, the Hyundai Sonata, was up 57 percent. Plus, at least some of the triple-digit increases put up by the Dodge Avenger and Chrylser Sebring in April seem to have come right off the Fusion's plate.
Finally, while it wouldn't be fair'”or productive'”to pick on the Chrysler Group's lineup, it is worth pointing out the the South Koreans are not exempt from this sort of problem. The Kia Forte, one of the first of the new-style products from the automaker and a very credible entry in its segment, sold fewer units this April than the dearly departed Spectra did during the same month in 2009.
That would be like the 2010 Ford Taurus failing to outsell the much-maligned 2009 model'”which, to be clear, isn't happening: The current full-size Ford sedan is improving on the sales of last year's by just about 100 percent.
Unfortunately for Ford, what the new Taurus isn't doing is beating out cars like the Chevrolet Impala, which topped the Blue Oval's sales number by about 10,000 units.
But we'll have to save investigating that little factoid for another day.