North American Auto Makers Set Robust Q3 Output Slate

North American auto makers have robust production plans for the year’s third quarter to keep up with strong consumer demand, necessitating the elimination of some traditional early July downtime.

As presently mapped, car and truck assembly plants are charged with building 3,922,800 vehicles in the July-September period, up 4.6% from the 3,749,100 units turned out in like-2012.

Significantly, truck production, including mediums and heavies, is set to rise 8.1% to 2,219,100 units for the quarter from 2,052,600 a year earlier. This largely is the result of a strong recovery in demand for pickups and cross/utility vehicles, although dedicated medium- and heavy-duty truck makers are increasing output 3.7%.

General Motors’ Q3 truck output is seen rising 5.6%, compared with prior-year, while car assemblies will fall 13.2%. Chrysler will build 5.2% more truck but 15.6% fewer cars. Ford is the exception, with car output surging 26.9% and trucks rising just 3.2%, in part because the auto maker built a stronger mix of trucks in like-2012 than its competitors.

Nissan and Toyota also plan a significantly larger boost in Q3 truck production compared with cars. Toyota is scheduled to build 11.1% more trucks in July-September than year-ago, while Nissan’s truck output will spike 44.4%. Toyota’s car assemblies will rise 6.0%, and Nissan’s will be up 6.1%.

Overall Q3 car and truck output is slated to best year-ago in each of the three months with the largest gain, 8.2%, set for September. August will be the biggest volume month, registering a 2.1% increase from year-ago.

July traditionally is the weakest month of the quarter due to vacation shut downs, and although it again will see the lowest output, it still will best like-2012 by 3.8% due to a number of plants forgoing the annual 2-week vacation closing to keep dealers flush with product.

The strong July-September plans come on the heels of a second-quarter performance that saw considerable waffling among the industry’s production planners, with cuts one month in whole or in part offset by later gains and vice versa.

As part of that, the latest June slate indicates a cut of 8,000 units, lowering scheduled output to 1,329,500, partially compensating for an estimated May overbuild totaling about 6,700 and a marked 29,800-vehicle increase in April’s adjusted final production tally.

The net result of all this is a 28,500-unit increase in Q2 output coming only a month after auto makers pulled some 11,000 vehicles from the April-June plan.

Production for the first nine months now is set to reach 12,252,900 vehicles, a 2.9% increase from prior-year’s 11,902,100, with trucks up 3.4% and cars ahead 2.4%.

The Detroit Three, scheduling output at 101.3% of year-ago, are expected to account for 52.0% of January-September North American output, down slightly from 52.6% in like-2012.

Transplants, operating at 105.1% of their prior-year pace, will account for 46.0% of Q3 production compared with 45.1% in like-2012. Dedicated medium- and heavy-duty truck makers will build just 87.6% of their year-ago pace and account for 2.0% of 2013’s output against 2.4% prior-year.

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