Here is the sales results for Nissan for last month and I'm left once again scratching my head in a odd pattern I've seen the last four months with Nissan on both the Maxima and Altima specifically??

June 2010
Maxima: 4,631
Altima: 15,920

May 2010
Maxima: 6,349
Altima: 21,950

April 2010
Maxima: 4,892
Altima: 14,762

March 2010
Maxima: 6,622
Altima: 24,649

February 2010
Maxima: 5,301
Altima: 16,198

What is going on with Nissan? There seems to be a back and forth each month in sales. One month the Maxima drops 1-2k units and the Altima drops 5-6k units, then goes back up by that much the next month and then down again the next month and repeat I don't understand what is going on? Is there incentive changes every other month, or production shortages every other month? What do you guys think is going on??? It seems to be very back and forth?

 

I feel the primary factor with the June drop is the reality that we have entered the first stage of the second drop of a two-bottom recession. Ford, GM and Chrysler also had big June sales drops.

All those happy signs of recovery the stock market loved as the Dow climbed back from around 6500 to around 11,000 misled a lot of folks. The reality is that we still have around 10% unemployment officially, and another 10% who have used all their unemployment benefits and have give up even looking for work, many of whom are not included in the 10% total.

The Dow is finally acknowledging the recession is far from over, having dropped back to the 9,500 area, and still falling. As I said here last fall, I see nothing that warrants a Dow over 7,500. I have seen no real sign employers are ready to rehire in any significant numbers any time soon. Small businesses are particularly wary at this time.

What concerns me most is that, despite all the usual political blathering back and forth, there is not a lot either party can do to help this situation. Any action to help those who need help takes the country's budget further into the red.

Those who try to blame either the cause or longevity of this recession on either political party are simply misled. This situation resulted from decades of irrational spending, a lack of rational control at high levels of business, and a rampant greed prevasive across the general population.

This is going to be a very slow recovery, one that is going to result in all auto makers scaling back on projects and changes. One of the things we will notice will be the reduction in vehicles produced and sold, as well as a reduction in the flexibility of options available.

Nissan and Ford foresaw serious economic problems coming over five years ago, and began combining options into tight packages and reducing spending at that time. The changes Ford made across the board enableled them to avoid bankruptcy. Fuel economy and reducing assembly line variation definitely had much to do with the Maxima dropping all trannies but the CVT beginning with the '07.

The concentration and efforts of auto makers is now moving to meeting very stringent 2015 fuel requirements. 2015 vehicles will be reaching dealers in 2014, which means planing and design of engines and trannies for that era are already underway.

How will Nissan address coming fuel requirements for the Maxima? A diesel engine? A hybrid? A smaller engine with turbocharger? All we know is that things will absolutely change. Whatever the choice, just as with the CVT decision, many folks will be unhappy.

 

Think you are right as far as the smaller engines, I think that the big power wars that we have had since the late 90's is about over. Lexus has already announced that in the Next Gen GS (current one is a niiiiice car) that there will not be a V8 and the V6 is going to have less power/smaller engine than the current car.