According to Wards Auto, global auto sales through May hit 32.62 million units, up 6.0% from the year-ago number. But as the chart above shows, the rate of growth in global deliveries has slowed dramatically over the past year-and-a-half, falling below five percent the last several months. So what’s the problem? At this point, what isn’t the problem? The US and Japan have been hit hard by the Japanese tsunami, while the once-blistering-hot markets of China and India are shrinking and growing more slowly respectively.

Collectively, markets in the Asia/Pacific region accounted for 2.35 million vehicle deliveries, equating to 37% of world sales, the region’s lowest global market share since May 2009.

In the U.S. and Canada, sales of Japanese vehicles slipped precipitously below the rest of the market in May due to supply shortages, pulling North America’s year-over-year performance 2.3% below like-2010 on a volume basis, despite an 11.7% increase in Mexico.

So where’s the good news? After a forgettable few years, Europe is back… and South America is staying strong.

Overall deliveries in Europe rose 14.2% in May, to 1.85 million units. The resulting 29.2% share of world sales was the region’s highest take since June of last year…

Double-digit growth in many of South America’s smaller markets lifted regional sales in May 27.6%, compared with year-ago, for a 7.9% share of global deliveries – a 9-month high.

What is there to say about this chart? Mustang had a shot… it coulda been a contender… but Camaro was just too busy building momentum, en route to what should be the nameplate’s best volume year since 1995. Challenger, meanwhile, just seems stuck spinning its wheels in third place. Oh, and since this chart has little in the way of controversy, let me just add this: if Hyundai starts breaking out its Genesis Coupe sales when it launches a muscle car-inspired facelift for the model, we would love to see how that underdog story plays out. In the meantime, though, Genesis coupe and sedan combined barely touch the Challenger’s volume… at this point pony cars are still very much an American game.

Honda and Toyota have been valiantly holding off an all-out assault on the compact segment thus far, and Civic and Corolla still lead the C-segment’s year-to-date sales race. FOr the month of May, however, the barbarians made it inside the gate, and turned the compact market on its head. Chevrolet’s Cruze, which was one of the first of new breed of compacts to launch, took advantage of its head-start in the marketplace to tear into first place, beating the new Focus by a mere 408 units. Elantra was about 2k units behind the Focus/Cruze leaders, but finished nearly 2k units ahead of Civic, which itself beat Corolla by nearly 1,500 units. Now that the Compact Wars are well and truly joined, we can expect more of this back-and-forth each month. In any given month this can be anyone’s segment… the question now is whether Honda and Toyota can possibly hang onto their YTD lead and finish 2011 with the volume win. It’s by no means a sure thing… hit the jump for a month-by-month breakdown of “big six” compact sales.

Read More >

OK boys and girls, we’re working on our last month of the first half of 2011… and it’s time for a gut-check. Here are the studs of the light-duty vehicle sales world, the top 25 total volume sellers in the US through May. But remember, we have no fleet sales breakouts by model (data donations accepted at our contact form)… so this isn’t necessarily a measure of the cars that are selling best with private consumers. Still, it’s an interesting list of cars, with a surprise for everyone (RAV4 barely beating Prius, for starters). We hope you enjoy it.

Forget crash test results, star ratings, or the number of acronym-laden electronic nanny systems that a vehicle has. If you’re a play-it-by-the-numbers kind of person and want to know safe a car is, statistically speaking, you’ll want to check out the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s new status report on “Dying In A Crash” [PDF].  The latest data comes from the 2006-2009 period, and includes only 2005-2008 model-year vehicles with at least 100,000 “registered vehicle years” in that time frame (if a vehicle was substantially redesigned in 2005-08, only the most recent design is included). Also,

researchers adjusted for a variety of factors that affect crash rates, including driver age and gender, calendar year, vehicle age, and vehicle density at the garaging location. Previously, researchers had adjusted only for driver age and gender.

“The adjusted driver death rates do abetter job of teasing out differences among vehicles, but they can only go so far. For one thing, people don’t behave the same when they’re behind the wheel of a sports car as when they’re driving a minivan. And some people are more susceptible to injury and death for reasons that can’t completely be adjusted for.”

Keep in mind that this data is for drivers only, since passenger data is harder to adjust for. Also, statistics don’t determine your safety on an individual level… that’s up to you every time you take the wheel. For more caveats (and the complete list), check out the report itself… or just wave this in front of your friends and family members who drive cars on the “highest rates of driver death” list, and hyperventilate at them. They’ll either thank you or tell you to take your nannyish concern elsewhere.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the “Detroit Three” automakers are once again on top of the charts, as a wild and wacky month of sales closed with some serious shifts in the volume-manufacturer landscape. Not only did Chrysler claw its way back to number three for the month, but Hyundai-Kia beat out all the Japanese competition save Toyota, which narrowly escaped with the top non-Detroit volume number. Detroit fans should savor the win, as the Japanese automakers should work through most of their inventory and supply issues by sometime this summer. Things should get back to (relatively) normal at that point, but for now it’s clear that literally anything is possible.

Crossovers, almost by definition, are hell to segment. This month we’ve taken commenter NulloModo‘s suggestion for separating mid- and large CUVs, so please direct all praise and criticism of this month’s segmentation to him. And then, just to piss everyone off (and save time for other, more interesting work) we’ve lumped all the luxury CUVs of every category into one giant, barely-legible chart. Is it perfect? No. But then, neither are crossovers. And like crossovers these charts will get the job done, even if they don’t wow anyone in the process.

BMW’s Dreier continues to be the dominant force in the smaller “mid-luxury” segment, while archrival Mercedes controls the large luxury segment (chart after the jump) with its E Class. But the bigger story? Lexus’s incredible vanishing act, with both the ES and IS drooping under the German onslaught. Cadillac’s CTS beat the Audi A4 sedan, but add the A5 in (as the CTS, 3-Series and G37 all include coupes) and the Caddy drops to fourth place for the month. Ultimately, though, the Mercedes, Audi, Cadillac and Infiniti may switch places month-by-month, but all four are clearly stuck vying for the role of best 3-Series alternative. Meanwhile, the large luxury sedan market would thrill for even that level of competition…

Read More >

The king is dead! After years of dominating the subcompact charts, the Nissan Versa was toppled from its top spot by not one but three upstart nameplates. Kia’s Soul, the Versa’s most consistent competition since it launched, has finally arrived as a legitimate slow-wave hit, topping 10k units and running away with the segment even as an updated model was announced at the NY Auto Show. Fiesta finally came into its own as well, racking up a thoroughly legit 9,147 sales over the month, and the lagging Fit staged something of a comeback with sales rising to 8,116 units. Versa’s fourth place finish was enough to handily beat Chevy’s aged Aveo, which itself nearly slipped below the equally aged Hyundai Accent for the month. Meanwhile, Yaris held off a solid-ish performance by Mazda2 and creamed its Scion xD cousin. With the Versa’s fall from grace (and the Cube’s non-impact) we have what may be an interesting peek at what the segment could look like when Nissan replaces its roomy Versa with its underwhelming Versa (Sunny) sedan. Of course, with new Soul, Aveo (Sonic), Accent and Rio models coming soon, there’s no telling where this segment could end up by the end of this year.

I’ve expanded most of our segments slightly this month to include some vehicles that either sell poorly enough to usually drop off our charts, or don’t quite fit into any one segment. For example, the Juke’s widened-Versa platform means it should probably be in a class lower than this one, but it’s selling well enough to earn a spot here, and doesn’t have enough direct competition for a “Crossunder” chart anyway. In any case, the Compact CUV segment is turning into something of a two-car battle between the CR-V and Escape after the close battles of the 2009-2010 period. And with a redesigned CR-V set to debut this year, Honda should pull away here… but that new Cute Ute has been delayed and supply interruptions are coming down the line, all thanks to the Japanese tsunami situation. Which means Ford’s old soldier, the Escape, will continue its unlikely prominence in a segment packed with newer, fancier options. But with a very different next-gen Escape coming down the line, Ford is taking a step into the unknown rather than building on the Escape’s SUV-lite positioning. So even though this chart doesn’t necessarily reflect it, this segment is actually fairly wide open. Game on!

The established Accord/Camry duopoly on the Midsized segment wasn’t in any serious trouble this month, but as tsunami-related shortages hit Honda, Toyota and Nissan, things could be in flux. In fact, the big story for April seems to be the relaxing of demand for Fusion and Altima, which still occupy a distinct second tier behind Accord/Camry in the Year-To-Date race. Behind those four, the Sonata and Malibu are neck-in-neck in the YTD standings, with the fleet-happy Impala (easy there Bias Police, AN [sub] reports that “In March, about 75 percent of Impala sales went to fleets and rental-car companies”) and the supply-constrained Prius trailing the pack. And then there’s everyone else. Chrysler Group’s midsizers are improving their sales, Legacy is in a holding patter, Maxima is showing its age and the Mazda6… well, that’s just a sad story, isn’t it? NB: VW did not sell a single Passat last month. Passat CC numbers will be in our weird mash-up segment of large/premium sedans.

In the comments section of Monday’s Honda Civic review, there was something of a rush to declare a new order in the hotly-contested Compact segment, with Honda notably losing out. Well, TTAC and its Best and Brightest tend to be a little ahead of their time, and the sales numbers for April prove that the Civic still attracts US car buyers in segment-leading numbers. But the monthly sales win was probably something of a bittersweet victory, as Honda dealers hunker down for what is likely to be months of tsunami-related supply interruptions. Meanwhile, the battle is getting feisty, with Hyundai and Chevy doing most of the disruption. Year-to-date, however, the Civic and Corolla are still maintaining their decades-long grasp on the compact segment. But then, the battle is only just beginning…

Edmunds’ Jeremy Anwyl asks:

The chart [above] shows the rate of fatalities per 100 million miles driven. We have assembled the data, going back almost 100 years. Look at the chart closely. Can you see a drop in fatalities that corresponds with when seatbelts were first introduced? Or when legislation mandating their use was passed? Or what about when air bags become prevalent? What about a jump in fatalities that ties to the current “epidemic” in texting while driving?

I can’t. The data does show that fatalities dropped markedly during the Great Depression and WW II. Aside from that, the rate has been declining  steadily for years. Decades, even. This is good news, but makes it hard to credit seatbelts, technology or the other factors that reflexively are given credit. I am not suggesting that we should all stop wearing seatbelts. I am suggesting that when thinking about transportation safety, there is more going on than we typically consider.

Bringing out a V6 version of a full-size truck like the F-150 is a good way to get truck guys suspicious, especially if you try to assuage their fears by talking about the engine’s direct-injection, turbocharging and other high-tech frippery. Ford’s solution: emphasize the “power of a V8, efficiency of a V6” simplification, and hope the market catches on as gas prices rise. But does Ford’s marketing concept actually hold true in real life? Does an Ecoboost F-150 get the mileage of a six cylinder even when doing tough truck-guy work? Thanks to some great work by Pickuptrucks.com, you can decide for yourself using the data from a fantastic infographic used to illustrate their test of a loaded and unloaded Ecoboost F-150.

Read More >

Retail market share is one of those metrics that tends to cut through the vagueness of pure sales-volume numbers, reflecting an automaker’s performance compared to the competition, without the distraction of fleet sales. It’s not a perfect measure of a business’s overall strength, as fleet sales can help with economies of scale and capacity utilization, but it’s one of the most accurate ways to measure the appeal of a firm’s products with real consumers. And, based on this chart of GM’s monthly retail market share (as calculated by TrueCar VP for Industry Analysis and all-round data ninja Jesse Toprak), GM’s much-vaunted Lutz-era products aren’t moving the needle with those real consumers. Emerging from bankruptcy didn’t seem to provide much of boost either. And unless drastic happens soon, GM’s battle for consumer acceptance will continue its slow but steady decline. Not good!

Hit the jump for raw data and a historical chart of GM’s non-retail market share.

Read More >