Welcome to the Daily 5 report for Monday, March 10.
Our annual dealer census coverage, led by this piece by Gail Kachadourian Howe, gives a comprehensive look at the direction of the U.S. auto dealership landscape.
Clearly, the Detroit 3 — long grappling with an overabundance of U.S. dealerships — made decisive moves in 2024 to improve the quality of their U.S retail networks by trimming back on quantity.
Ford Motor Co. lost the most stores among the Detroit 3 at 68, down 2.2 percent year over year. General Motors and Stellantis each shed 0.6 percent of their stores last year, our report says.
By the same token, many of the import brands grew their U.S. store counts, particularly the aggressively expanding Hyundai and Genesis brands.
The number of exclusive Genesis franchises as of Jan. 1 totaled 60, up significantly from 11 the prior year.
The jump is in line with the luxury brand's focus on building standalone stores to separate its franchises from the Hyundai brand and bolster its growth and customer experience. The number of exclusive Hyundai stores increased by 80 to 612 last year.
Meanwhile, in the latest tariff-related news, Canada has a new prime minister, but don't expect any new cooperation with the Trump administration on tariff matters. Mark Carney, the Canadian prime minister-designate, didn't mince words in his victory speech on Sunday.
"The Canadian government is rightly retaliating with our own tariffs," Carney said in this story from Bloomberg. "My government will keep our tariffs on until the Americans show us respect — and make credible, reliable commitments to free and fair trade."
In Japan, there was more bad news today for Toyota Motor Corp. as it extended its production stoppage for the popular RAV4 and Harrier crossovers, as Hans Greimel reported. It also widened the suspension to another nameplate at another factory after a rare explosion at a parts maker in Japan killed a worker and snarled the domestic supply chain.
The March 6 blast at Chuo Spring Co. in Toyota City also injured two other workers at the same factory where a 2023 explosion forced Toyota to halt 13 lines at eight plants.
After suspending operations for the March 10 morning shift at two factories, Toyota extended the shutdown at the affected lines through that afternoon and for the March 11 first shift. A Daihatsu plant supplying Toyota was added to the operations offline.
Tesla is getting its share of bad news from Asia, too. Elon Musk's automaker has been backsliding in China for the past five consecutive months on a year-on-year basis, according to data from the country's Passenger Car Association in this Bloomberg story.
Tesla's shipments plunged 49 percent in February from a year earlier to just 30,688 vehicles, the lowest monthly figure since way back in July 2022, Bloomberg said. This is among the growing list of worries dinging shares in Tesla, which as of Friday was on pace to lose its entire $700 billion "Trump bump" in market value on Wall Street.
Looking ahead, keep an eye out early tomorrow for the management drama at Nissan Motor Co. It's possible — but not definite — that the automaker's board could name a new CEO.
That's it for today. Have a great rest of your day!
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— Philip Nussel, online editor
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