AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)07/02 Report--

According to the latest report of Kyodo News Agency of Japan, Japan's six major automobile enterprises released a total of 2.391 million new car sales in the United States in the first half of 2022, down 26.9% year-on-year. According to the performance of each big car enterprise, sales volume of all Japanese automobile enterprises in the United States fell year-on-year, except Mitsubishi Automobile, the other five automobile enterprises showed double-digit decline.

Among them, Toyota's sales in the United States fell 19.1% year-on-year to 1045697 units in the first half of the year, significantly behind the US auto giant General Motors, which was 1095247 units, surpassing Toyota to regain the top US auto sales. Data show that GM sold 2.218 million vehicles in the U.S. market in 2021, while Toyota sold 2.332 million vehicles in the U.S. market, marking the first time an overseas car brand won the U.S. title. It is understood that GM has maintained its position as the top American automobile since it surpassed Ford in 1931. In the 1960s, two decades after Japan's economy took off, Toyota began exporting to the United States, which coincided with an increase in the immigrant population and a strong demand for Japanese economy cars with low fuel consumption and low failure rates. In 1984, Toyota started production in the United States through a joint venture with GM. In 1986, Toyota opened its first independent plant in Kentucky. By 2021, Toyota will be operating a joint plant with Mazda in Alabama in the south of the United States, bringing the number of complete vehicle plants in the United States to five.

Other car companies, Honda fell 39.3% year-on-year to 506207 vehicles, Nissan fell 34.2% year-on-year to 384252 vehicles, Subaru fell 17.9% year-on-year to 263795 vehicles, Mazda fell 24.5% year-on-year to 142803 vehicles. Among the six major Japanese car companies, Mitsubishi Motors has the smallest impact, down only 9.6% year-on-year, but has the lowest market share, with sales of only 48272 vehicles in the first half of the year.

Trapped by chip shortages, labor shortages and supply chain bottlenecks, major U.S. automakers are generally struggling to increase capacity and meet consumer demand for new cars. Toyota was one of the most affected automakers, with chip shortages and the new crown epidemic forcing the company to cut production several times, casting a shadow over its production targets. According to Cox Automotive forecasts, Tesla may be the only car brand to achieve sales growth in the first half of the year.

Industry watchers worry that the highest levels of inflation in decades and rising oil prices will hit the auto industry. Since the beginning of this year, inflation in the United States has remained high, soaring prices have led to a sharp rise in people's living costs, consumers have been forced to reduce the consumption of durable goods such as automobiles, and enterprises are unable to stand alone. Tesla closed an office in San Mateo, California, where employees worked to improve Tesla's driving assistance system Autopilot, and more than half of its employees have been told to fire as part of Tesla's layoffs as costs rise, Chinese Wall Street Journal reported on June 29. Earlier, Musk said in an email that Tesla needed to lay off about 10 percent of its workforce because of a "super bad feeling" about the economy. On June 21, Musk made clear the layoffs at the Qatar Economic Forum and said he would increase the number of part-time hourly employees and reduce the overall number of employees by 3% to 3.5%.

Similar to China, high oil prices in the United States have greatly limited people's desire to buy cars. On June 30, U.S. President Joe Biden said at a press conference in Madrid, Spain, that "high oil prices in the United States may not end until the end of the Russia-Ukraine conflict." Biden's comments all but made clear his weakness on gasoline prices, which have soared since the start of the year and topped $5 a gallon two weeks ago, a record high. According to AAA, the average price of gasoline in the United States was $4.842 on July 1, a slight decline from the previous two weeks.

According to the data, the top three global automobile sales markets in 2021 are China, the United States and Japan respectively, with annual sales of 21.482 million vehicles, 14.947 million vehicles and 4.448 million vehicles respectively. Take Japan and the United States market as an example, although only some automobile enterprises announce market sales volume, it is enough to prove that under the influence of inflation, parts shortage and soaring oil price, the automobile market shrinks significantly. As the world's largest auto market, China sold 9.54 million cars from January to May 2022, down 12% year-on-year, while the United States fell 18%, Japan fell 12%, and the world's major auto markets performed weakly.

However, with the introduction of the national purchase tax policy and the further liberalization of epidemic control, recently governments at all levels have issued a package of policies to boost the economy and promote consumption, which has a certain promotion effect on the recovery of China's automobile market, and the terminal popularity and transaction have been improved. According to the data of the Passenger Association, from June 1 to 26,2022, the retail sales of passenger car market reached 1.422 million vehicles, with a year-on-year growth of 27% and a month-on-month growth of 37%.

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