August 2, 2006

Canadian vehicle production up, U.S. down, analyst says

Richmond Hill, Ontario - Vehicle production in the first six months of 2006 is up 1.7 per cent in Canada, but down 2.7 per cent in the U.S., reports industry analyst Dennis DesRosiers. Currently, Canada has 18.7 per cent of all production in both countries. In total, Canada built 521,067 passenger cars and 757,275 light trucks from January to June, 2006.

"In Canada, CAMI is up 15.9 per cent, Toyota up 7.1 per cent, GM up 3.7, Honda down 0.9, DaimlerChrysler down 2.2 per cent, and Ford down 5.6 per cent," DesRosiers says. "Ford is on track to only produce a little over 200,000 vehicles this year. At its peak in 1999, Ford produced 685,535 vehicles in Canada. Most of this lost production has been made up by Toyota and Honda, but the dramatic drop at Ford is the primary reason why Canada has not significantly increased its North American production share. We are holding up a little, but with Ford cutting back so significantly, it has been hard to gain ground on the U.S."

In the U.S., BMW was down 20.5 per cent, Nissan was down 15.7 per cent, Ford was down 11.0 per cent, DaimlerChrysler was down 7.5 per cent and Toyota was down 6.3 per cent. "GM was only down 1.6 per cent and continues to do better than the other two Detroit-based producers," DesRosiers says. "Honda was up 6.9 per cent, NUMMI up 9.3 per cent, Mitsubishi up 7.6 per cent and Mercedes-Benz was up 215.1 per cent. Hyundai is also up a lot, but they just opened their plant last year, and year-over-year comparisons are not very relevant."

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