Jul 02
A record 70,308 Canadians save over $350M on Car Purchases in the U.S.
150,169 vehicles have been imported into Canada from the U.S. in the first half of the year. This represents more than double the 64,000 imported over the same period last year.
More significantly 47% or 70,308 individual Canadians have taken the leap and did it themselves. This represents a conservative savings of over $350 Million. (70,000 cars @ a savings of 5K each)
The remaining 80,861 were imported by Brokers and dealers.
We expect the numbers will expode in the later part of the year as the new harmonized bumper rules take affect, the US economy tanks even further, and more and more U.S. dealers start becoming very friendly to Canadians,
The numbers include ATV,trailers,snowmobiles and buses, but we are assuming that these vehicles represent only 2-3% at most.
Thanks to the RIV for supplying the numbers.
July 2nd, 2008 at 2:57 pm
This is real good news in the sense that Consumers are not buying all these scare tactics and special Canadian pricing that we see all over the newspapers. These import numbers will continue going up as long as the Dealers/Manufacturers do not adjust prices to fair prices for Canadians. More and more Canadians realize there is a lot of net gain by importing. Gain > than pain.
Finally there are many of those imports made by dealers - I trust that they are giving really good pricing to their Canadian customers!?
Time for manufacturers to smarten up-
yr 2007 - 190,000 vehicles - yr 2008 - 300,000??? - yr 2010 500,000??????
July 2nd, 2008 at 5:35 pm
To put this into perspective, Canadians bought 138,000 cars a month (on average, based on Statistic Canada numbers for Jan, Feb, Mar, April) - these are cars sold in Canada, imports are not included.
So the six months worth imports from the USA are worth more than a MONTH of sales. If the trend contunues, Canadian dealers will lose more than two months worth of sales. Imagine, that could have been a 14-month year for them.
July 3rd, 2008 at 8:26 am
Are they crazy…
35M$ for 150 000 cars…it’s avg 233$ of savings by car….
I would say it’s at least 5k$ by car and it’s for 99% far far more….
July 3rd, 2008 at 9:34 am
Something is wrong with the math here gentlemen. Total savings should be
at least $700 Million, not $35,000,000. Guess I shouldn’t be surprised given
that these numbers come from the RIV
July 3rd, 2008 at 9:35 am
I screwed up! the Very Conservative savings for those Canadians that did buy the vehicle on their own is 70,000 multiplied by $5,000 is $350M not $35M ….
only goes to prove I am human and I have bad eyes… Thanks for pointing out my mistake.