Autoblog

Faced with miserable sales and a brutal economy, General Motors has reverted back to employee pricing for non-GM employees and family members. You may remember the last employee pricing campaign in 2005 that led to record summer sales followed by a miserable fall due to the fact that everybody looking to buy a vehicle pulled their purchase decision forward. This time around, only customers that get a unique PIN from an employee will receive the special pricing, and every GM employee gets one PIN to give away. That translates to roughly 108,000 vehicles that are eligible for special pricing, and only active employees are eligible to participate. Left out of the discounted car sell-athon is the General's considerable pool of retirees, which is larger than the sum of active workers. GM is hoping the promotion will give sales a boost without resorting to wholesale incentives to everyone, and with July rumored to be just as bad as June, the General can use all the help it can get.

[Source: Detroit News]

Following on the heels of DaimlerChyrsler's report of a catastrophic July in the U.S. market, Ford Motor reported that its sales were equally bad, falling an identical 34 percent compared to the record-breaking July of 2005.

The difference, of course, is that the Chrysler Group results came despite a return of its aggressive Employee Pricing incentive program, while Ford offered less radical incentives compared to last year's Family Plan pricing.

On a brand-by-brand basis, the flagship Ford brand posted the worst result, losing 35.7 percent, while Volvo posted the best news, a drop of only 10.2 percent.

On a vehicle basis, Ranger and F-Series truck sales were down 50.6 percent and 45.6 percent, respectively, while SUV sales were even worse, with the Expedition showing a 57.4 percent drop, and the Explorer and Escape faring little better, at -50 percent and -33.3 percent, respectively.

On the bright side, Ford's July sales were 6 percent better than June's, with its new mid-sized Fusion, Milan and Zephyr sedans up 18 percent over the previous month.

[Source: Ford]