Rarely does a car company get to reinvent a segment, let alone create a new one from whole cloth. The small unibody truck is not a completely new phenomenon (I mean, who can forget the Škoda Felicia Fun?). An affordable, unibody hybrid truck is a new thin, and Ford has done something kinda magical in creating the Maverick.
It’s tough to be in a leadership position and then suddenly you find yourself having to step aside. To give up what you think could be a victory for yourself. To make that sacrifice. It’s admirable, really, but enough about Lando Norris. The other race, the race for the presidency, has been upended by the swapping of President Joe Biden for VP Kamala Harris. Does she have a Corvette? Does she even like cars?
We’ll find out tomorrow exactly how well or poorly Tesla did in Q2, though the market is already predicting bad news on margins. What we might not find out anytime soon is just how poorly (or well) the car market did at the end of June as the CDK Global outage has made those estimates tough. What we do know is that affordability is still an issue.
Who is ready for a Monday Morning Dump?
The Maverick Is Less Than 100 Units Away From The Wrangler
I like to go back through the quarterly sales reports after a few weeks and see if there’s anything I missed. The original rush of information is when I like to point out the big trends (Honda up, Stellantis down, et cetera).
It’s when you go a little deeper that you start to pick out more information. For instance: the surge of Toyota Tundra sales and the (possibly) brief stumble of the Ram brand. In the case of Tundra/Ram I think at least it can partially be ascribed to the timing of platform releases.
Here’s one that’s even weirder: Jeep sold 77,204 Wranglers in the first half of the year, and over that same period Ford sold 77,113 Mavericks.
These are not necessarily competitive vehicles, as the cheapest Jeep starts at around $32k and the most affordable Maverick is about $24k, with the hybrid closer to $26k. One is an off-road SUV with impeccable creds and the other is a soft-roading economy truck.
Still, I think a Maverick is appealing in a similar way, as a utility vehicle for people who don’t always need the utility. The edge that the Maverick has is it’s way more affordable at every trim level (a base Maverick hybrid is almost half the price of a Wrangler PHEV before incentives/tax credits), is as/more practical than a Wrangler, and yet still has a “cool” factor. The Jeep Wrangler is arguably “cooler” to some, but the gap between it and a Maverick is much smaller than the gap between a Jeep and, say, a Buick Envista.
Is this a fluke? I don’t think so, Jeep Wrangler sales were down 17% in the last quarter and overall down 9% year-over-year. The Maverick is the opposite. Sales for the quarter were up 81% y-o-y and up… 81% for the first half. The biggest obstacle to Maverick sales was production and Ford has mostly fixed that by adding extra shifts at the Hermosillo, Mexico plant.
The Maverick is an obvious hit and we don’t really know where the ceiling on sales is yet because Ford keeps selling every single one they build. If this pattern continues, the Maverick will outsell the Wrangler by the end of the next quarter.
If you were curious, after the Wrangler the next best-selling vehicles in America are:
- Honda Accord: 80,721
- Kia Sportage: 79,853
- Subaru Crosstrek: 79,500
- Toyota Tundra: 78,454
I don’t imagine the Maverick will outsell the Accord, though sales for that model are slipping as the CR-V scoops up customers. Actually, the Maverick could outsell the Accord at this rate.
Does Kamala Harris Even Like Cars?
You don’t have to be a car person to be President of the United States. It’s not a prerequisite or anything. Abraham Lincoln, famously, never even owned a car, which is a real irony when you consider there’s a whole car brand named after him.
How many Presidents were gearheads? Harry Truman liked fancy cars and road trips, so he’s a borderline car nerd. Ronald Reagan rocked a Subaru BRAT so I’m going to say he was one, too [Ed Note: He also used to drive a rare Jeep CJ-6. That’s just cool. -DT]. President Biden is our first self-admitted ‘Car Guy’ President.
If you were away from all communications devices yesterday on a long overnight hike and the first thing you’re doing when coming back is to check The Morning Dump then you might want to sit down: President Biden isn’t running for a second term, and most of the Democratic Party is behind VP Kamala Harris. What this means for the actual election is anyone’s guess.
Former President Trump has attempted to make inroads with autoworkers, though the UAW was officially Team Biden. Given that Trump used his acceptance speech to dog on UAW leadership my guess is that they’ll throw their weight behind Harris.
Does VP Harris have any connection to cars? Not really, though our friend Micheline Maynard has a good roundup of the Veep’s growing connections to Michigan and Labor:
Much of Harris’ role has been to promote actions by the Biden Administration, which has been called the Biden-Harris Administration in official statements.
When the United Auto Workers union won an organizing vote at Volkswagen’s Chattanooga plant in April, Harris tweeted her congratulations. “Unions are critical to our fight to build an economy where every person, not just the wealthy or well-connected, can thrive. When unions win, all workers win,” she tweeted.
Last fall, she talked about the UAW strikes at General Motors, Ford and Stellantis on PBS Newshour.
That video is fairly instructive:
Is she “good” on labor if you’re an autoworker? I think so, though that doesn’t make you a car person.
She is from California and once dated Montel Williams, so there’s a non-zero chance she drove something awesome in the 1990s. Ford Escort GT? Pontiac Sunfire? If anyone knows what Kamala Harris drove please tell me.
It’s been a wild 24 hours and no matter which end of the spectrum you’re on I think we can all agree that it’s great news for Maya Rudolph fans.
Can Tesla Beat Estimates Again?
Tesla’s Q2 sales still trounced just about anyone else hoping to sell an electric car in the United States. The only car company that beat Tesla last quarter was… Tesla of a year prior.
Even better for the company, Tesla managed to move slightly more units than most analysts expected. The question then becomes: How much margin did the company have to sacrifice to get those sales?
Wall Street expects Tesla’s automotive gross margin, excluding regulatory credits, to have slipped to 16.27% in the April-June period, its lowest since the first quarter of 2019, according to 20 analysts polled by Visible Alpha.
Profit margin for vehicle sales, excluding the sales of regulatory credits, was 16.36% in the January-March period and 18.14% in the second quarter of 2023.
Tesla’s discounted financing at a time when interest rates are high “represents an even less visible price cut”, Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi said in a note earlier this month.
Again, we’re grading a bit on a curve here. If it’s 16.27% or lower that’s bad for Tesla. By comparison, GM would be happy to hit 15%.
What’s Going On With Used Vehicles?
New car sales are starting to come back to something like a normal level and prices are moderating a bit, so what does this mean for used cars?
It’s harder to say than usual because of the CDK Global outage, which both disrupted actual sales and sales reporting as Cox Automotive admits in their latest report:
Although we estimate a decline in used retail sales for June compared to May, the disruption makes it challenging to provide an accurate report.
Ok, so that’s tough, but there’s one piece of info I think is much clearer, and that’s vehicle affordability:
Affordability remains challenging for consumers, and supply is more constrained at lower price points. Used cars below $15,000 continue to show low availability, with only 39 days’ supply, 35% less than the industry average. The top five sellers of the month were listed at an average price of $23,833, about 6% below the average listing price for all vehicles sold, and were once again Ford, Chevrolet, Toyota, Honda and Nissan, accounting for 49% of all used vehicles sold.
At $23,833 you’re awfully close to a nice new car like a Chevy Trax or a Ford Maverick.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
I got invited up to the Berkshires this weekend for a little lake action, some BBQ, and a concert being headlined by The Whiskey Treaty Roadshow. I was vaguely aware of the headliner as my friend is a huge fan and he’d played some of their songs for me. We arrived late and caught their opener, Bella’s Bartok, and I gotta say it was quite a good show. It’s slightly ska-ish but with fewer horns and more life-sized marionette puppets. The woman doing the puppeteering was great, with the most “we spent $80,000 sending you to UMass Amherst for this?” energy imaginable.
The Big Question
Does the Maverick beat the Wrangler? The Accord? What do you think?
The 2025 Maverick configurator goes live Aug 1, and if they do have an AWD hybrid model without reduced towing capacity I will be trading in my Ioniq PHEV and selling my old F150.
I haven’t seen any brand new vehicles in my suburban neighborhood, mostly cars from the teens or late teens……I do see a lot of Broncos and Escapes around town, and I’m starting to see Mavericks now.
We have a KC Car spotters page on Facetube, and I’m constantly surprised at the number of really high end expensive cars seen around town – tons of Ferraris, McLarens, Lambos, new Loti, Rolls, Bentley, even a Pursangue, a Pagani and an Urus have been spotted, all with local plates (or Montana) so there clearly is a lot of car money in my area.
I also see a LOT of Audis, apparently the suburban car of choice here in the mid land. (I have two Allroads – a 2014 and a 2018, so I guess I fit in here)
If they are selling a lot of new cars, maybe the reason I don’t see them is that they all sort of blend together, and I can’t tell the new ones from 5 years olds?
maverick outselling the wrangler isnt nuts. its a much better vehicle and significantly cheaper. ford really fucked up not running three shifts at that factory from the get go. id still like a base hybrid to replace my element.
Seems like Ford landed on something people actually want to buy instead of something that makes no sense for most people being propped up by marketing.
That’s what happens when you hire IDEO and have an actual design department, not just a bunch of stylists (D Ford). Too bad Detroit kicked out Jim Hackett for not being a dyed in the wool car guy.
Cheaper. More practical. More likely to be used for its intended purpose. Better MPG. More comfortable. No aluminum corrosion issues. Not Stellantis.
Yeah, not surprised and pleased to hear the Maverick is selling well.
Is it really crazy that the Maverick would outsell the Wrangler?
Wrangler is supposed to be a vehicle so off-road capable that driving it on the highway should bring with it quite a few compromises.
The Maverick is a four door family vehicle available as a hybrid that is well-mannered on paved roads and as bonus is a pickup truck.
The surprise is that people buy so many Wranglers to use as normal cars that will never go off-road in their lives.
On paper the Wrangler should sell like 8 units a year but some marketing person somewhere deserves a raise.
I feel like I saw a bunch of stuff on the cars subreddit a month or so ago about the Accord struggling with sales. I was confused because I see new ones everywhere and they look great. Now these numbers say they’re among the best selling cars in America? How does that work?
EDIT: those articles are talking about year over year differences which seem to be supply related. That makes more sense.
I find it far more astounding that Jeep sells that many Wranglers. A vehicle that is singularly unfit for what 95% of owners actually use it for. Other than they look cool, I guess.
The Maverick is a well-deserved home run – it’s all the truck the typical suburbanite actually needs while using 1/2 the fuel.
I wouldn’t buy a Wrangler either, at least not as primary transportation, but pretty much no one makes rational utilitarian choices for their vehicle. If we did, we’d all be driving Saul Goodman’s Suzuki Esteem.
Most vehicles choices are pretty rational. Buying something that is COMPLETELY compromised for on-road use so that it is good OFF-road is asinine if you are never going to take it off-road.The two-box jacked up styleless gray blobs that make up the majority of the non-pickup truck market today are soulless, but they are immensely practical.
More rationale than a Wrangler for sure, but new cars would not be as expensive as they are if their primary purpose wasn’t the signaling of status and wealth. The Wrangler is a similar signaling tool… Just a little different signal.
For most, that has very little to do with it. Nobody is signaling anything by buying a Nissan Rogue or Chevy Equinox. I agree that anyone spending $60K for a vehicle that is completely unsuited for what they are going to use it for is doing it for silly reasons – but Wranglers are an extreme example of this. The latest are not as terrible as the old ones, but they are still terrible compared to just about everything else on a road.
Cars are expensive today because we want a level of content, safety, and performance that was the purview of the best of sports sedans when I first got my license in even the most prosaic of family trucksters. And on that basis, they are actually cheaper than ever when adjusted for inflation. If your income has not kept pace, that’s more a you problem than a car problem.
If course they’re signaling! You may not be impressed with two boxes of egg-shaped mediocrity, but when your neighbors are driving the aforementioned Suzuki Esteem, it sends a message!
I don’t want to get dragged down into the weeds with a conversation about why cars are expensive. It’s more complex than either of us just implied, but they are expensive. The inflation adjusted prices are only cheaper than ever if you are looking at the cheapest option available: the Saul Goodman’s choice of new cars. Average transaction prices have consistently beaten inflation for a long time now, and not buy a small amount:
https://i2.wp.com/financialsamurai.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/IMG_8477.jpg?fit=1456,9999
None of my neighbors are driving Suzuki Esteems.
My ’88 Mercedes 300TE was FAR more expensive adjusted for inflation than my ’14 E350 wagon was, and might as well have been a stagecoach in comparison. For a car with half the power, half the driven wheels, no power mirror on the driver’s side, and used 1/3rd more fuel. And a lousy tape deck. It was also about half as reliable, and no cheaper to fix. Like I said, adjust for content, and it’s not even close – you literally can’t buy them like you used to, and thank god for that. Literally NOBODY but some wierdos who hang out on blogs like this have any interest in automotive hair shirts anymore.
The average new car price is severely warped by the rise of the very expensive fancy pickup trucks and other premium vehicles – like Jeep Rubicons. The rich HAVE gotten richer after all. Normal work-a-day cars are not more expensive than they ever have been. And as shown by my example, luxury cars have gotten relatively cheaper, even as the fact that so many more of them are sold today causes the average to go up and up.
As crap as a something like a Mirage is, they are a Rolls-Royce compared to an early ’80s Ford Escort, which was massively better than a Pinto.
The average transaction price for a new car is exceeding inflation because the average buyer is purchasing a more expensive class of car – NOT because cars are getting more expensive when comparing like to like. A 2024 Honda Civic is cheaper than a 1994 Honda Civic when adjusted for inflation. The same can be said for the Accord.
However the average transaction price is up because today’s new car buyer is purchasing a CR-V or Pilot instead of the Civic or Accord they would have bought in the 90.
And the current Civic is twice the car in features and refinement.
I have been of the opinion that cars have gotten too expensive and after reading your comments I just ran some numbers for curiosity. The 1994 Plymouth Voyager SE, one step up from the base trim and a car my parents owned, had an MSRP of $19,913, which is $42,791 in today’s dollars. The 2024 Pacifica Touring L, one step up from the base trim and a car that I own, because goddamn it I’m turning into my parents despite my best efforts, has an MSRP of $43, 500. That is pretty damn close and a lot closer than I expected. Not to mention that old Voyager certainly didn’t have niceties like leather and heated seats.
I blame all the Jeep demand on Mork and Mindy. It’s always been a chick car to me. In fact all the Jeep drivers I know are young women.
Makes sense.
And that is pretty much who drive new Jeeps here. With all the rubber duckies in the front window. WTF is THAT all about?
Dudes drive old beat Jeeps that look like they are used for what they are meant for.
I may go camping once or twice a year that requires driving across a field or up a fire road, nothing my Subaru can’t easily handle and I have no interest in rock crawling or in hardcore off roading but I would love a jeep or a bronco if I could easily afford one simply to take the roof and doors off in the summer. If they made (and they never will for obvious reasons) a cheaper 2wd version with a different gear ratio and road tuned suspension I would buy it in a heartbeat
I was out of town this weekend and was at a stoplight next to a Chrysler dealer. Parked in a row next to the street were Wranglers with their price in lime green stickers on the windshield. 62495, 58995… Wasn’t one under $50k.
Back at home there are plenty of high income people who seem to have no problem dropping $60k on a Rubicon, big tires and a lift so can drive it on a highway to their tech job in the suburbs. Everywhere else though….I’m guessing it is a challenge to make the numbers work at those prices. And I am seeing more Broncos than ever these days. And as others have pointed out, I’m guessing the Land Cruiser and refreshed Tacoma steal some Wrangler sales too.
The Maverick really has no competition in my eyes. I’d cross shop it against a Prius, RAV4 hybrid/Prime just because they are also fuel efficient cars with utility, but they aren’t small trucks. The Hyundai truck isn’t even on my radar due its comparatively poor fuel economy.
I’m pretty sure Harris is very much an enthusiast about the back seat of the presidential limo.
It’s heartening to still see at least one car and one kinda car on the top sales list.
What, exactly, are you implying here?
the Maverick is kind of a marketing idea that actually worked out in the end. Unlike 40K BEV fullsize pickups that were loss leaders, but also failed to drive up demand, the maverick is a small FWD 42 mpg vehicle in a world where small 40 mpg cars are going away. Add in the initial base price of the Hybrid that got that Fuel economy and it was hard for the people shopping the lowest priced vehicles out there to not consider it. Add in the basic 4 door, 5 seat nature and ability to occasionally drag home a tv from Wally world, and bam. No had Ford not limited production, and then not been able to say they are selling every one they make, then perhaps the demand might not have taken off. to raise the price 6K in a year or two and nobody saying a word is testament.
Using the Escape basically for this and the Bronco sport was again smart use of shelf parts, but I can tell you from real world experiences, I am not sold on quality in the long run. lots of recalls, and bargain basement design and workmanship is a real concern for anyone keeping them past the 3 years/36,000 miles.
It’s not marketing. It’s design, real design not styling which is what most “design” departments in automotive OEMs specialize in. Real design is understanding the subtleties and nuances of what your customer wants so that you can actually build something useful and valuble.
How many model refreshes until the Maverick becomes larger and more expensive and thus become the antithesis of why we love it?
By the time I am ready to buy one.
Too true
It gets more expensive every year. Initially the hybrid was the cheapest, now it starts a couple grand above the base according to this story. The real question is when they add the charging port so you can start each day and the price increases as it likely will. will the price then cut out the group that desperately needs the 40 MPG $20K(Now $26k) vehicle just to be able to get to work and back.
Agree with the other comments. The Maverick is practical and affordable. The Wrangler is neither of those things unless your job requires off-road driving – in which case, your employer should buy you a Wrangler. We are in difficult financial times and for most folks, buying something impractical and expensive makes no sense.
It’s really disingenuous to say Tesla beat analyst estimates, when the estimates are continually reduced the entire quarter until numbers are announced. It’s a moving goalpost. Tesla gives the analysts explicit “guidance” right up until end of quarter so they can “beat” the estimate every time.
I think non-Jeep enthusiasts bought Wranglers because they wanted something smaller than 3 rows that doesn’t look like RAV4/CRV/Escape…. The Ford Maverick comes at a perfect time when you can’t buy a smallish truck and it’s a decent value. I’d be a little more interested if they offered a 2-door extended cab version, but it’s still an appealing vehicle. I really hope its success spurs more manufacturers to develop their own hybrid small trucks.
well also it was a trendy thing like Harley’s and Tacoma’s. Ford Kind of made a bunch of the not so off roady types that want to look the part still a decent deal in the Bronco.
The Maverick is 100% going to outsell the Wrangler, especially with Stellantis possibly forcing the 2.0T onto more lots over the 3.6, since you can’t trust boosted engines…. or something from owners of the junk 5.7’s.
After the Multiair issues many had, I could see the concern with the other stellantis boosted engines
FIFY