Detroit Gains Ground in 2013 as Ford Fusion Sets Growth

[Purveyor]

By Craig Trudell - Jan 2, 2014

Charlee Smith said he sees Toyota Motor Corp. (7203)’s Camry and Honda (7267) Motor Co.’s Accord all over California and their styling makes him think “appliance.” To stand out, he picked a gas-electric hybrid with a grille that evokes British sports cars, buying a Ford Motor Co. Fusion.

“I know it’s an ego or a vanity thing, but I’ll admit: I like it when people turn their head,” said Smith, 63, who works for an adhesive manufacturer between Los Angeles and San Jose. The Fusion “has proven to be everything I wanted in a car.”

Americans are snapping up U.S. cars spanning from Chrysler Group LLC (CGC)’s Dodge value brand to General Motors Co.’s Cadillac luxury line, highlighting the newfound breadth of offerings in the automakers’ showrooms. Armed with what Kevin Tynan, an auto analyst for Bloomberg Industries, has called their most competitive lineups in a generation, each of the Detroit Three entered December on track to gain U.S. market share for the year. They’ve all increased sales faster than the total industry for a calendar year only once in the last two and a half decades -- when Japan’s 2011 tsunami wiped out months of Toyota and Honda output -- according to the Automotive News Data Center.

Fielding attractive cars such as the Fusion has freed the Detroit Three from the longtime bind of choosing between volume or charging enough for their cars to earn profits on them, said Tynan. Each of the automakers boosted the average selling prices of their vehicles in 2013 as they outpaced a U.S. auto market now poised for a fifth consecutive year of expansion in 2014.

‘Both Ways’

“Prior to 2009, for Detroit it was ‘pick one,’” Tynan said in a telephone interview. “If you were doing volume, you weren’t doing any kind of pricing or profitability. And if you were doing any kind of pricing, you weren’t getting any volume. It’s all come together now to where they can have it both ways. That’s significant.”

more...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-02/detroit-gains-ground-in-2013-as-ford-fusion-sets-growth.html

[last1standing]

1. As a Detroiter I'm glad US auto companies are doing better.

Now they need to bring more jobs back to the city.

[Savannahmann]

3. Before they bring it back to the city.

They'd have to bring it back to the Country. The Fusion is built in Mexico.

[Savannahmann]

2. The Fusion is built in Mexico man.

I'm just saying, it is built thanks to NAFTA, and the low labor cost in Mexico.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Fusion_(Americas)#Second_generation_.282013.E2.80.93.29

So I guess buy American means North American?