TrueCar.com Releases April Grades for Manufacturers and Brands

Scion, Porsche & Hyundai Receive Top Grades

News provided by

May 17, 2011, 09:00 ET

SANTA MONICA, Calif., May 17, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- TrueCar.com, the authority in new car pricing, trends and forecasting released its Performance Scorecards for automotive manufacturers and brands. The full report is available in TrueCar.com's monthly TrueTrends Report. The Performance Scorecards grade each manufacturer and brand on eight different measurements including pricing, sales, incentives, customer loyalty, market share and days in inventory data.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110401/LA75616LOGO)

Overall, the top manufacturers on the Scorecards in April were Porsche, Hyundai and BMW. Near the bottom of the list were Saab and Suzuki. The brands that received the highest grades are Scion, Porsche and Hyundai and the brands with the lowest grades were Lincoln, Chrysler and Suzuki.

"Chevrolet's strong showing this month was due to its strength in retail sales while decreasing its incentive spend in April," said Jesse Toprak, VP of Industry Trends and Insights at TrueCar.com. "Nissan had the sharpest decline among all manufacturers with a steep decline in market share and extreme variance in pricing."

The biggest gainers among manufacturers, from March 2011 to April 2011, were:

Chevrolet moving from a C+ to a B+
Honda moving from a D to a C+
BMW moving from a B to an A-
Volkswagen moving from a B to an A-

The biggest decliners among manufacturers, from March 2011 to April 2011, were:

Nissan moving from an A- to a C
Mazda moving from a B+ to a C-
Suzuki moving from a C to a D

"Hyundai was the only non-luxury manufacturer with an A rating because of solid retail sales without having to spend on incentives," continued Toprak.

Below are the top three highest and lowest manufacturer and brand rankings by TrueCar.com:


Highest Grades by Manufacturer			Lowest Grades by Manufacturer
Rank	Manufacturer	Grade	Rank	Manufacturer	Grade
1	Porsche	A+	1	Suzuki	D
2(tie)	Hyundai	A	2	Saab	D+
2(tie)	BMW	A	3 (tie)	Daimler	C-
			3 (tie)	Toyota	C-
Highest Grades by Brand			Lowest Grades by Brand
Rank	Brand	Grade	Rank	Brand	Grade
1 (tie)	Scion	A+	1 (tie)	Suzuki	D
1 (tie)	Porsche	A+	1 (tie)	Chrysler	D
1 (tie)	Hyundai	A+	1 (tie)	Lincoln	D

The TrueTrends Report is available to be viewed in its entirety at TrueCar.com.

About TrueCar, Inc.

TrueCar, Inc. is an automotive solutions provider focused on changing how cars are sold by providing a significantly better customer experience while helping qualified dealer partners to gain incremental market share and reduce costs. TrueCar.com is a transparent, visual publisher of new car transaction data. TrueCar.com price reports help both dealers and consumers to agree on the parameters of a fair deal by providing an accurate, comprehensive and simple understanding of what others actually paid for the identically equipped new car over the last 30 days both locally and nationally. TrueCar, Inc. works with a national network of nearly 5,000 Certified Dealers that provide up-front, no-haggle, competitive pricing to assist some of the nation's largest and most well respected membership and service organizations. These partnerships include American Express, AAA, USAA and more than 60 others. Collectively these audiences represent over 1M in-market customers each month. TrueCar, Inc. is headquartered in Santa Monica, CA and has offices in San Francisco. The company was founded in 2005 and has been profitable since 2009. With nearly 200 percent year-over-year growth TrueCar has driven over 250,000 sales and is developing a suite of transaction oriented products and services centered on transparency and radical clarity as a result of comprehensively analyzing market data and information. You can follow TrueCar on Twitter and become a fan of TrueCar on Facebook.

About TrueCar Data

TrueCar obtains data directly from numerous sources including automotive dealers, technology companies, data aggregators, and analytics companies within the automotive space. We also acquire vehicle configuration data, customer and dealer incentives data, financing and loan data, vehicle registration and insurance data, and much, much more. TrueCar is insatiable about data with our goal to find 100 percent of all purchase transactions, even if that means finding the same transaction multiple times from multiple sources within the car-buying ecosystem. Our data is among the most timely and comprehensive in the industry. TrueCar believes the greater our informational accuracy, the greater benefit we provide to both dealers and consumers.

Disclaimer

This press release and the information contained herein is for noncommercial use on "as-is, as available" basis and may be used for informational purposes only. TrueCar makes no representations or warranties, express or implied, with respect to the information contained in this press release and the results of the use of such information, including but not limited to implied warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement. The information contained in this press release may include technical inaccuracies or typographical errors. Neither TrueCar nor any of its parents, subsidiaries, affiliates or respective partners, officers, or directors, employees or agents shall be held liable for any damages, whether direct, incidental, indirect, special or consequential, including without limitation lost revenues or lost profits, arising from or in connection with your use or reliance on the information presented in this press release.

Available Topic Expert(s): For information on the listed expert(s), click appropriate link.

Jesse Toprak

https://profnet.prnewswire.com/Subscriber/ExpertProfile.aspx?ei=94534

SOURCE TrueCar.com