speedflex

Now we're talking about who's bigger. Toyota is bigger than Nissan? Who knew???

If you can prove that Nissan is selling significant numbers of 2013 Altimas at less than 20k please do.

LexFather

Monthly Totals

BMW-27,078
Mercedes-24,646
Lexus-23,180
Cadillac-15,751
Audi-13,253
Infiniit-11,103
Lincoln-6,825
Land Rover-4,314
Porsche-3487
Jaguar-1,408


Buick-18,007
Acura-14,100

LexFather

I honestly can't pick on just one mid-size family car, Altima, Accord, Camry, Malibu etc etc, there are tons of national and regional incentives. I posted the data and Nissan/Infiniti continues to lead with incentives from Asia so they do likely have more to offer on the Altima. They probably are letting those coupes go too (is a new one coming?).

They all can be bought/leased fairly cheaply, none are immune and none really should be singled out for incentives.

speedflex

Exactly! If Nissan kills the coupe I think it would be a bad move... unless they have something else planned, like a 240/Sylvia revival.

Vladi

Most likely that's how year is going to end as well

GS69

How the Altima Topped the Camry

"You knew this day was coming," boasted Nissan brand's U.S. sales boss Al Castignetti after hearing the news that his Altima had eclipsed the Toyota Camry to become the best-selling car in America in March. "You just didn't know when it would happen."

Castignetti can be forgiven a moment of playful basketball-court trash talk. The Altima's rise over the past 2 years from the doldrums of also-ran mid-sized sedans has been watched with skepticism by some, or -- even worse -- simply overlooked as unimportant.

The Altima has topped the Camry, the longstanding leader, in monthly car sales 3 times in the past, but there were extenuating circumstances. In March and May 2011 the Camry was winding down at the end of its model cycle, and in January 2010 Toyota was reeling from a massive global product recall and factory shutdown.

But Castignetti and Nissan believe things are different this time. The Altima has been redesigned, and the entire segment has changed because of a keener focus on fuel economy and technology.

Nissan executives grouse that the industry buzzes about its redesigned competitor models, the Ford Fusion and Honda Accord, while Nissan tends to get taken for granted. And Castignetti, in his sixth year as Nissan Division's vice president of sales, sees last month's victory -- with all the major sellers running at peak performance -- as proof that the Altima is a bona fide contender now.

Startling rise

"The message that's clear in our achievement is that the mid-sized segment no longer has a mammoth in it," Castignetti says in his distinctive Boston accent. "We're all good now. We're all scrapping for a piece of the pie. It's going to be harder now for anybody to dominate the segment, and it's going to be naive for anybody who used to be the sales leader to think they can just sit back and dominate."

Bob Carter, senior vice president of automotive operations at Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A., disagrees. He vows that the Camry will reclaim the top spot.

Still, the Altima's ability to rival the Camry for the sales crown is startling.

For most of the past decade, Nissan has been playing catch-up in the mid-sized market. The Camry has been the unrivaled king, while the Honda Accord was queen. In 2007, for example, the Altima was the 6th-top-selling car. The Camry was 1st among all cars, not just those in its segment, followed by the Toyota Corolla/Matrix and the Honda Accord.

But then 2 years ago last month, fate struck in the form of a destructive Japanese earthquake and tsunami. Thousands were killed, and Japanese auto plants and global supply lines were thrown into chaos. Because Nissan was able to stabilize production sooner than Toyota Motor Corp. or Honda Motor Co., Nissan picked up U.S. market share and the Altima caught a new tailwind.

Because of the months in 2011 when Toyota and Honda had difficulty getting car production back to full power, the Altima in 2011 "came very close to outselling the Camry," Castignetti said. "For the 1st time, it seemed entirely real to us that we might do this someday."

Then last year, at the 2012 New York auto show, Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn stated publicly that the next-generation Altima would be a U.S. market leader.

"When he said that," Castignetti recalls, "We all said, 'Yep, it's really going to happen.'"

Redesigned, more capacity

The redesigned 2013 Altima that began reaching showrooms last summer was more upscale. Nissan executives have acknowledged in recent years that the brand was suffering from murky public impressions, and a vague perception of Nissan as the Japanese bargain brand. Planners and designers gave the Altima more supple touches, including softer interior surfaces and more comfortable seats, plus more advanced electronics and improved handling.

Equally significant, the car was made over to deliver segment-leading fuel economy. Thanks to a redesigned continuously variable transmission, a smart alternator and vehicle lightweighting, the new Altima -- even in its least expensive trim package -- gets better fuel economy than the vaunted EcoBoost package of its Detroit competitor, the Fusion. And it does it without the extra cost or complexity of a turbocharged engine.

It also helped that Nissan has been squeezing out more factory capacity for the model, adding workers at its two plants in Tennessee and Mississippi and preparing suppliers for volumes to compete with Toyota and Honda's big U.S. factories.

More galling to rivals, the Altima snatched the March sales crown even as its sales volume declined.

1 year ago, as the previous-generation Altima wound down the final year of its life, Nissan cranked up fleet sales of the car. Executives assured market analysts last year that it was a temporary move, taking profits on an old model as the new 1 moved into position.

In March, the effects of pulling the Altima back from the fleets were visible. The Altima posted 37,763 sales, an 8% decline from March 2012 -- in part because of a 35% reduction in fleet sales.

Castignetti: More retail now

Compared with a year earlier, more of the Altima's sales are retail sales now, Castignetti said, giving both dealers and the automaker better profit margins.

Nissan does benefit in the sales race from having an additional model to count in the total: the Altima coupe. But that body variation is selling in low volume, Castignetti said. It is still the previous-generation design for 2013, and Nissan will probably discontinue the coupe, he revealed.

What's selling across the industry, he emphasized, are fresh sedans with new technology and styling. The Altima happens to be a newer product than the Camry. But not by much.

Toyota's Bob Carter at least agrees with that. "We are the oldest in the segment," Carter said of the Camry, somewhat flabbergasted. "And we're just 18 months in the cycle."

That's because the Altima, Accord, Fusion and Chevrolet Malibu have been redesigned in the last year. Says Carter: "The entire segment just launched."

And, in March at least, the Nissan Altima emerged on top.

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

i doubt toyota's worried, but one thing is clear... the nissan altima looks and feels like a much more expensive and higher quality than a toyota camry. the camry may not fall apart, but it looks cheap and boring. it will continue to sell like mad as so many want a safe choice, but the altima and accord are better choices, and more people are figuring it out. the fusion looks great and is a nice car, but the lack of fuel economy credibility hurts it.

toyota will do a camry makeover and add more standard equipment to sweeten the offering, and probably take the top crown again soon.

LexFather

No mention that they also sell an Altima coupe. No mention of Nissan incentives being highest out of Asian brands. No mention they sold literally 100 more cars than the Camry, it wasn't some whooping.

Hilarity. Again I like the Altima and would choose over the Camry but the hard-ons for Toyota's fall are amazing.

LexFather

http://www.autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dl...#axzz2Pyn2PmYm

speedflex

Yeah, they did. But it keeps sounding like this is it for the coupe because I bet they sell no more than a couple thousand a month. Honda still has the accord coupe though.

"Nissan does benefit in the sales race from having an additional model to count in the total: the Altima coupe. But that body variation is selling in low volume, Castignetti said. It is still the previous-generation design for 2013, and Nissan will probably discontinue the coupe, he revealed."

No one is realistically saying that the Camry's day as king is over. It will most likely retain that title for most of the rest of this year. I think the lesson here is this:

"The message that's clear in our achievement is that the mid-sized segment no longer has a mammoth in it," Castignetti says in his distinctive Boston accent. "We're all good now. We're all scrapping for a piece of the pie. It's going to be harder now for anybody to dominate the segment, and it's going to be naive for anybody who used to be the sales leader to think they can just sit back and dominate."

LexFather

True, they are all pretty good and all selling well it seems (or most). If we recall history when this Camry was debuted to dealers, they pretty much hated it and demanded changes and the Camry was delayed but clearly there is so much that could be done. Surely the dealers saw this coming.

I look at the new Fusion, Accord, Altima, 6 and they look amazing for family sedands, the Camry just looks blah in comparison and I think its going to hurt the Camry. The good thing is it doesn't look remotely like a Lexus so Lexus doesn't feel a thing.

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

not sure what's hilarious and where do you see anyone looking for toyota's fall?

agreed, as above...

agreed

Hoovey689

iTrader: (16)

Altima, Fusion shaking up midsize sedan sales race

When we first saw and drove new midsize sedans like the 2013 Nissan Altima and 2013 Ford Fusion, we had a feeling the Toyota Camry would eventually see a challenge for the top sales spot, but we had no idea things would move this quickly. Automotive News is reporting that the quarter tallies still show the Camry holding a sizable lead over its competition, but the Altima did manage to outsell the Toyota by 100 units last month. While a single month of not outselling the competition might not be enough to unseat the Camry from its 11-year sales throne, it goes to show how far recent competitors in the segment have come.

The four best-selling cars in the midsize segment (in order) are the Camry, Honda Accord, Altima and Fusion, with each car boasting more than 80,000 units through the first three months of the year. Both the Accord and Fusion are seeing double-digit year-over-year sales increases while the Camry and Altima have dropped somewhat. And it wasn't just Camry that was losing ground. As we saw in the March 2013 By The Numbers post, Toyota sales as a whole were down slightly from 2012 while all of its key competitors (Chevrolet, Ford, Honda and Nissan) were in the green.

After the top four sellers in the segment, the next closest midsizers are the Chevrolet Malibu and Hyundai Sonata, but these cars are well off the competitive pace. Although the 2014 Mazda6 isn't expected to take too big of a bite out of the midsize market, its attractive design and available diesel engine could continue the shakeup of this once-predictable segment.

http://www.autoblog.com/2013/04/09/a...an-sales-race/

TRDFantasy

Maybe it's you getting older, me staying younger, or who knows what else, but I must strongly disagree with you on that one .

Having seen the new Accord, Fusion, Altima and Mazda 6 in person, I will say that IMHO NONE of them look "amazing" in comparison to a Camry. There are some luxury sedans that look amazing in comparison to a Camry yes, but none of the Camry's competitors look that amazing IMHO.

The Fusion in-person looks very awkward and ill-proportioned. They messed up terribly with the proportions on the Fusion. It looks too tall and not wide enough, almost like the car got crushed from the sides. The Altima looks like a bloated, wavy bar of soap, and frankly I'm shocked as to why it's so popular. Usually consumers shun such bloated looking sedans, or at least they have historically.

The Accord does look good overall, but the LEDs in the headlights detract from the overall look of the car as they are quite tacky. Overall though it looks quite refined, and I would put it equal to the Camry in terms of an elegant exterior.

The Mazda 6 does look quite good as well, but it's still a bit too tall and awkward-looking in person. They should have made the car lower, and made the fender flares better proportioned.

The Camry specifically in SE form looks quite good IMO. In base form it looks more generic, but a lot of the competitors in base form look generic as well.

Joeb427

iTrader: (1)

I agree with Mike.The new Fusion, Accord, Altima, 6 and they look amazing for family sedans, the Camry just looks blah in comparison and I owned a '07 Camry XLE and '11 Camry hybrid.
The new Camry is so ugly,a lot of cost cutting,rides harsher and the interior noise is high compared to the last generation.
Is there a Toyota/Lexus vehicle you actually don't like?