Good morning! It’s Monday, July 31, 2023, and that is The Morning Shift, your every day roundup of the highest automotive headlines from around the globe, in a single place.

1st Gear: Jeep

Jeeps have been going up in worth for a number of years now, an industry-wide development, as a result of a lesson automakers took from the pandemic and the entire supply-chain insanity is what if we bought fewer vehicles however costlier ones? That isn’t nice for these of us who miss the times of just about inexpensive new vehicles, however these days are gone anyway, and for auto executives who’ve shareholders and boards to please the brand new actuality is extra snug.

That Jeep went down this highway, too, with a automobile just like the Grand Wagoneer — which presently begins at $91,140 and might simply get into six-figures with choices — was solely shocking in that Jeep isn’t a model you’re presupposed to spend some huge cash on.

Nonetheless, in response to The Wall Avenue Journal on Monday, all of this had the unsurprising impact of weakening Jeep’s market share, since they weren’t chasing quantity so explicitly. And in addition something-something about how they’re unhealthy at advertising:

Since mid-2018, Jeep has surrendered vital market share, falling from sixth to ninth in gross sales amongst high U.S. manufacturers.

[…]

Nonetheless, final week, Stellantis Chief Government Carlos Tavares expressed concern over Jeep’s market-share slide and vowed to reverse it.

“We have to do a greater job in Jeep, largely Jeep within the U.S.,” Tavares mentioned throughout a convention name discussing the Netherlands-based automaker’s outcomes for the primary half of 2023.

He mentioned the model slipped just lately with ineffective advertising ways and didn’t at all times have the best variations of well-liked fashions obtainable at dealerships. The corporate intends to realize again market share within the coming yr, he added.

“It’s not rocket science,” Tavares mentioned. “We simply need to do it correctly.”

Maybe extra fascinating right here is that a part of the issue, too, is that Jeep’s buyer base is struggling.

Jeep clients have traditionally skewed towards decrease credit score scores, analysts say, and plenty of of these consumers have been pushed out of the present new-car market. On the finish of Might, Jeep consumers who took out a automobile mortgage had a mean price of 8.5%, larger than at rivals akin to Ford and Toyota, in response to Cox information.

“That they had a excessive share of subprime consumers, and people have gone away,” mentioned Michelle Krebs, a Cox analyst. Stellantis mentioned it had no touch upon its share of subprime clients.

Jeep, like each automaker, desires excessive earnings, it desires a excessive market share, it desires to promote a number of shiny, costly new issues. Or costlier and even shinier new issues, till somebody sends a memo about the way it wants to return to the technique of some years in the past. Or a mixture of the 2, when another person sends a memo saying that that is actually all about attaining the best stability. This was all simpler to know when Jeep was only a Wrangler and Cherokee model. We haven’t even talked concerning the Gladiator and what a bizarre automobile that has been.

2nd Gear: Lamborghini

The supercar and Urus maker Lamborghini mentioned Monday that it may promote at the very least 10,000 vehicles in 2023, with an emphasis on may, as a result of first-half gross sales had been 5,341.

From Reuters:

Chairman and CEO Stephan Winkelmann mentioned it was not straightforward to make forecasts resulting from market uncertainties, together with with uncooked supplies, however added that promoting 10,000 vehicles this yr was a “possible aim”.

“It’s not one thing we’re obliged to attain, nevertheless it’s necessary to point out what the well being of the corporate is and the way massive (shoppers’) willingness to purchase our vehicles is,” Winkelmann mentioned.

Supported by the success of its Urus SUV, which prices round 200,000 euros ($219,900) earlier than tax, Lamborghini has lately expanded its output, counting on strong demand from rich automobile lovers. It delivered over 9,200 automobiles in 2022.

Ferrari bought greater than 10,000 vehicles for the primary time in 2019, a tragic day for Ferrari purists in all places who imagine that Ferraris ought to be uncommon and solely bought to folks Ferrari has lively contempt for. One thing tells me that there gained’t be a lot angst if Lamborghini sells greater than 10,000 this yr.

third Gear: Toyota

Toyota — behind the eight ball in relation to EVs, as a result of it nonetheless believes that hydrogen is the longer term or one thing — has determined to position a guess on EVs in China, in response to Reuters, in line with its international technique of constructing performs on EVs simply after markets resolve they aren’t all that enthusiastic about them anymore.

From Reuters:

Toyota will strengthen improvement of electrical automobile expertise in China, the automaker mentioned on Monday, because it appears to be like to meet up with more and more powerful home competitors on the planet’s largest auto market.

The transfer is the most recent from the world’s top-selling carmaker to point out a sharper pivot to electrical automobiles. It just lately detailed an formidable new EV technique that features an overhaul of its provide chain and the event of long-range batteries.

China was as soon as regarded by overseas automakers as a possibility for nearly boundless development. Now they fear about diminishing market share because of the quick rise of native rivals and cut-throat costs.

Toyota is to speed up powertrain improvement with suppliers Denso and Aisin in addition to native design and improvement of “sensible cockpits” that meet the wants of the Chinese language market, it mentioned in a press release.

Toyota will focus not simply on battery-electric there, but in addition hybrids and hydrogen and plug-in hybrids, which is the sort of hedging you are able to do once you’re the most important carmaker on the planet.

4th Gear: Pour One Out For Sellers

Everybody’s favourite companies within the automobile world noticed earnings drop within the second quarter, in response to Automotive Information, properly, for at the very least 5 of the six dealership teams which are public firms.

5 of the six main publicly traded franchised dealership teams reported double-digit share declines on new-vehicle gross earnings throughout the second quarter, as inventories grew and rising rates of interest lower into customers’ shopping for energy. That got here as the entire publics besides Asbury Automotive Group Inc. posted new-vehicle gross sales good points within the quarter.

The six publics — Penske Automotive Group Inc., Sonic Automotive Inc., Asbury, Group 1 Automotive Inc., Lithia Motors Inc. and AutoNation Inc. — collectively averaged about $5,000 in revenue on every new automobile bought throughout the second quarter, in contrast with about $2,000 within the second quarter of 2019, earlier than COVID-19 disrupted the {industry} in 2020.

The entire publics besides Sonic additionally skilled year-over-year drops in second-quarter gross revenue per used automobile, however the group’s mixed common revenue of about $2,000 was about $500 larger than the common within the second quarter of 2019.

Taking a extra long-term view, then, the sellers are doing simply wonderful.

Reverse: Fog Is No Joke

Impartial: How Are You?

I pulled a muscle in my again just lately for the primary time and, gotta say, no enjoyable! It could not have been the primary time I’ve pulled a again muscle, nevertheless it was actually the primary time I couldn’t get away from bed for days with out searing ache. I’ve been on a gradual weight-reduction plan of yoga ever since, if solely to have the ability to get right into a automobile once more with out a lot bother. True outdated man stuff.