Find Reviews by Make:
With all precincts counted, May turned out much better than thought.
Detroit 3 post China-type double digit growth rates. Toyota lags. BMW, Porsche, Suzuki the only losers.
Industry up 19 percent for the month, up 17 percent up for the first five months.
Complete table for all automakers after the jump.
U.S. Car and Light-Truck Sales, May
Data as per Automotive News [sub]
| Automaker | May 2010 | May 2009 | Pct. chng. | 5 month 2010 |
5 month 2009 |
Pct. chng. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BMW Group | 22,118 | 23,020 | -4% | 98,384 | 93,734 | 5% |
| Chrysler Group LLC | 104,819 | 79,010 | 33% | 434,731 | 402,900 | 8% |
| Daimler AG | 19,882 | 16,317 | 22% | 90,797 | 77,454 | 17% |
| Ford Motor Co. | 196,671 | 161,197 | 22% | 805,662 | 618,369 | 30% |
| General Motors | 223,410 | 190,881 | 17% | 882,885 | 772,733 | 14% |
| Honda (American) | 117,173 | 98,344 | 19% | 487,282 | 430,358 | 13% |
| Hyundai Group | 80,476 | 62,997 | 28% | 342,740 | 287,302 | 19% |
| Isuzu | – | – | -% | – | 165 | -100% |
| Jaguar Land Rover | 3,671 | 3,391 | 8% | 16,407 | 15,311 | 7% |
| Maserati | 152 | 128 | 19% | 732 | 481 | 52% |
| Mazda | 22,605 | 16,718 | 35% | 97,481 | 86,652 | 13% |
| Mitsubishi | – | – | -% | – | – | -% |
| Nissan | 83,764 | 67,489 | 24% | 375,762 | 289,446 | 30% |
| Porsche | 1,873 | 1,979 | -5% | 8,842 | 8,757 | 1% |
| Saab Spyker Automobile | 174 | – | – | 522 | – | – |
| Subaru | 23,667 | 17,505 | 35% | 104,359 | 74,686 | 40% |
| Suzuki | 1,903 | 2,585 | -26% | 9,514 | 20,259 | -53% |
| Toyota | 162,813 | 152,583 | 7% | 705,938 | 638,794 | 11% |
| VW | 32,882 | 27,230 | 21% | 145,372 | 108,836 | 34% |
| Other (estimate) | 294 | 306 | -4% | 1,470 | 1,530 | -4% |
| TOTAL | 1,098,347 | 921,680 | 19% | 4,608,880 | 3,927,767 | 17% |
27 Comments on “May Surprise: U.S. Car Sales Up 19%...”
Read all comments
Healty?
Sales growth. It’s what makes a Subaru, a Subaru.
Chysler numbers are up on their web site… 33% increase on 100,000 sales
Toyota numbers are in now too 140,000 units 3.6%
Canadian Sales
http://www.desrosiers.ca/Monthly%20Updates/sales.pdf
Noteworthy:
Ford now in the lead for 2010 market share.
Hyundai/Kia continue inexorable climb towards the top 3.
Toyota and Honda keep slipping, dealers still arrogant and refuse to deal (some editorial may have preceded this message)
Chrysler throws eight billion vans into the fleets, unconscionable cash on the hood for retail customers.
Hyundai Group’s rise to third place will take more horsepower if Chrysler keeps it up (they almost doubled Hyundai’s growth this year). Of course if GM keeps free falling the way they have been, Hyundai will take over 3rd place by default.
I’d be interested to learn more about what the nature of Canada’s love/hate relationship with Chrysler/GM is? If I had to guess I’d say it’s that Chrysler has not abandoned the mini-van.
Rusted source: I assume it has to do in part with the Canucks’ affinity to Pontiacs (god help them), and their subsequent absence.
BTW, why does automotive news always report a slightly different SAAR than Wards or Autodata – Who is “right”?
Toyota and Honda keep slipping, dealers still arrogant and refuse to deal (some editorial may have preceded this message)
—
At TTAC, car makers piling cash on the hood was laughed at. If it’s arrogant to keep the prices high, exactly what should the automakers or dealers do to avoid bashing?
Touché. MSRP? I think Saturn and Toyota had a term for this at some point (something about the lack of bickering about prices).
Except in the Canadian market, most of the MRSP’s are based on an exchange rate of 85 cents on the dollar – where the reality has been 95 to 100 cents on the dollar over the last little while.
So throwing $$$ on the hood, isn’t quite as bad as you might in Canada.
Now if GM could start leasing again they could gain back a good percentage of sales (roughly 40% of GM purchases were leases before the meltdown in the US).
Mfr. rebates and dealer haggling are two different matters, gents.
Now if GM could start leasing again they could gain back a good percentage of sales (roughly 40% of GM purchases were leases before the meltdown in the US).
Yes, and I'll bet that number was far higher in Canada.
rebates and dealer haggling are the same thing. The dealer can lower the price by getting undisclosed incentives from car maker.
Too much cash on the hood is ultimately unprofitable. GM and C could give cars away, but never make up the losses through volume.
I personally believe in no-haggle pricing for new vehicles as a way to improve the sales process, customer satisfaction, and profits. Cash on the hood would become rare again, not the norm. MSRP today is totally meaningless.
John Smith:
Yes, mfr. rebates can assist in dealer haggling, but dealers also have (some) wiggle room depending on how desperate they are to move the metal.
Government Motors plugged another 36% into fleets this month. How about everyone else?
Do you have something to back up that #? That is typically their normal fleet volume (Chrysler is typically higher but GM / Ford / Hyundai are about the same with Toyota just below). Some months they have major volume with higher %s.
http://blog.taragana.com/business/2010/06/02/strong-new-products-and-fleet-sales-push-up-ford-gm-sales-up-in-may-67089/
“Fleet sales spiked to 38 percent of GM’s sales. Those sales can hurt resale values and brand image, but the company said it expects to end the year with 25 percent of its sales to fleets.”
I wonder how many fleet sales were in Chrysler / Dodge’s 33% raise. Their entire lineup is still dated.
Wow. GM sold 64,000 more units than Toyota.
Chevrolet outsold Toyota. I don’t mean the Toyota brand, I mean Toyota Motor Sales, as in: Toyota, Lexus, and Scion.
Seeing “Saab Spyker Automobiles” is just weird. Weirder is seeing no Saab sales from last year; I’m assuming that’s because of the ownership change?
The Saab sales until the closing are under GM
“Now if GM could start leasing again they could gain back a good percentage of sales (roughly 40% of GM purchases were leases before the meltdown in the US).”
Leasing was the only way most people could manage to put those expensive SUV’s/Trucks in their garage. God forbid we drive something we can actually afford to buy.
Some interesting tidbits from scanning the corporate press releases:
Ford Fusion (22,381) and Malibu (21,722) are getting surprisingly close to Camry (29,295) numbers. The gap is still there, but the Fusion was up 13% and the Malibu a whopping 54% (fleet sales?) while the Camry was down 6.5%. If that trend continues, we could see Chevy and Ford going at it for the title of best-selling car in a couple years, which honestly is something I’d like to see.
Mustang (10,225) outsold Camaro (8,931) for what I believe is the first time. I guess the 2011 Mustang is out now, nice to see the upgrades are having the desired effect on demand.
As for Chrysler’s sales, they must be really loading up on fleets and rebates because I don’t see how their numbers are up so much without any new product.
Last year at this time the factories were closed due C11. People did not buy because they were unsure about the company’s future (remember Chrysler was the FIRST to go thru C11, not GM – which is exactly how the administration wanted it, Chrysler would be smaller and easier to guide thru C11 (a “practice run”), and when it came out intact it would not be so alarming when GM would follow). So we have gone from dismal sales this month a year ago to more normal(ish) sales this month.
Is there a way to reliably add a new column showing fleet % sales? I see big spikes in sales and MFGRs say they are doing well and the grass is green…when their sales drop it’s b/c they are selling less to fleets. They like to claim retail sales success on certain models (like Ford does) but we don’t get all the facts in a succinct fashion.
http://www.automotive-fleet.com/Statistics/StatsViewer.aspx?file=http://www.automotive-fleet.com/fc_resources/stats/AFFB10-20-car-reg.pdf