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  • William Maley
    William Maley

    By William Maley •

    Domestics Cut Back On Sales To Rental Companies, Asian Automakers Pick It Up

      Ever wonder why rental fleets are somewhat devoid of GM and Ford vehicles, while Hyundai and Kia vehicles are taking their place?

    Automotive News recently reviewed a fair amount of data to answer a question; which automakers are selling more vehicles to rental car companies? Previously, the big three would do "fleet dumping" as a way to prop up sales for the month. But now, Ford and General Motors have actually cut back on selling to rental fleets and number of Asian automakers are picking up the slack.

     

    Automotive News compared sales to rental fleets in 2012 to this year's numbers, and GM has reduced its sales to fleets from 18.6 percent (nearly one-fifth of their total sales) to 13.6 percent. It should be noted that GM is still the top rental car provider with 378,219 vehicles through November. But GM is the only automaker to reduce its rentals this year (down 11 percent through November).

     

    Ford has also seen its share of fleet sales drop from 15.4 in 2012 to 11 percent this year. Automotive News does note that Ford's fleet volume has increased 23 percent through November of this year.

     

    Meanwhile, Asian automakers are increasing their sales with Hyundai and Kia leading the charge. Through November, 22.4 percent of Hyundai's total sales were for rental fleets. Contrast this to just 9.9 percent in 2012. Jessica Caldwell, an analyst for Edmunds.com says a possible reason for this is people are buying up crossovers and trucks, and Hyundai and Kia don't make that many.

     

    "Anytime an automaker is under pressure to protect market share, it's tempting to count on the daily rental business to dial up more volume," said Caldwell.

     

    Source: Automotive News (Subscription Required)

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    Robert Hall

    Anecdotally, the last time I was at a rental lot (Hertz #1 Club Gold, San Jose airport) a couple months ago, the selection seemed to tilt heavily in favor of Hyundai, Kia and Toyota....a couple years ago the same garage area seemed to have a lot of more Ford and Chrysler products.

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    oldshurst442

    Manufacturers that sell to rental fleets...why do some folk think its bad?

     

    Its bad only when your customer base is srinking because you build crap cars and you dump the rest of your unsold crap to rental fleets to bolster up sales...

     

    However, its good business when actual customers buy your cars because they actually want to own them and so you sell some of your less than stellar performing cars to rental fleets...maybe the cars that arent selling is because that generation is coming to end...whatever, its good business to sell...to whomever that wants to buy your cars...

     

    In other words...selling to fleets is just good business...

    If your business model sucks or if your products suck and your over all compnay sucks for variuos reasons...its not because you sell your cars to fleets heavily that selling to fleets is bad...your company sucks regardless where and to whom  you sell to...

     

     

    What I find horrible in all of this where Hyundai/ Kia and Nissan is picking up the slack and mainly Asian brands...its because we are in AMERICA...and Hertz, Avis, Thrifty, Enterprize, they are American...and GOD DAMN IT...why is it that AMERICANS DONT BUY AMERICAN ANYMORE???!!!

     

    I get it...Chrysler, Ford and GM have used that business model trait for soooooo long in the past when they produced junk and dumped all their so called bread and butter cars to rental agencies just to say that they compete with the Asian cars that it has become synonymous to say that rental car fleets equates to struggling car sales because said cars are junk...

     

    But in Hyundai's case, I doubt that is the case in 2015...its a smart move by them to gain more exposure when people rent their cars from Thrify and its even more metal they move added to they sales they already make...I highly doubt Hyundai/Kia is relying on rental fleet sales to make the house payments if you know what I mean...

     

    I get it that Ford and GM and Chrysler dont ant to re-visit that road again...Im just stating that a car manufacturer that wants to have an additional income source, selling cars to rental fleets is not a bad move...

     

    About buying American and American that dont...

    Sure...the D3 built junk in the 1980s and 1990s....problem is...so did the Germans and the Japanese  during that same time frame...

     

    The only thing Ill let up on is that some Japanese cars WERE built GREAT in the 1980s and 1990s...the Accord, the Camry, the Civic and Corolla...maybe a Nissan and a Mazda...but the rest were WORSE junk than the American cars!!!  And...not that an Accord or Camry did not have any issues either...

     

    SO I REPEAT...WHY ARENT AMERICANS MORE PROUD OF THEIR AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY LIKE EUROPEANS ARE???!!!

     

    That will forever perplex me...

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