September 2015 was a massive month for the U.S. auto industry, as the SAAR (seasonally adjusted annual rate) shot past 18 million sales and year-over-year volume jumped 16 percent. The auto industry marked the end of the third quarter having produced five-percent growth compared with the same period one year ago, making possible the idea that American consumers, businesses, and governments will purchase and lease more than 17 million new vehicles in 2015 for the first time in 14 years.

That’s the overall theme. These are some of the more interesting numbers which help make it so.

2,630 Non-Golf Golfs: Even before Volkswagen’s dirty diesel scandal, the majority of Golf hatchbacks (ignoring the SportWagen for the moment) sold in the United States aren’t even available with a diesel engine. The gas-only GTI, gas-only Golf R, and electric-only e-Golf generated 69 percent of total Golf hatchback sales in September. (Read More…)

The FR-S did not turn out to be Scion’s savior. Doubts regarding the ability of a conventional hatchback and a subcompact sedan — the brand’s first sedan — to rescue a brand that was built on unconventional cars have been expressed in many corners.

Yet with the arrival of those two cars, the iA and iM, Scion was the fastest-growing car brand in America in September 2015 and the second-fastest-growing brand overall. (Read More…)

Twelve days after early reports revealed that Volkswagen Of America’s TDI Clean Diesels weren’t so clean after all, Volkswagen reported a one-percent U.S. sales increase for the month of September 2015, the month in which the emissions fraud was revealed.

But did Volkswagen’s U.S. volume truly rise? And if so, what kind of extra volume is generated by a one-percent uptick? Moreover, while Volkswagen trickled forward with just its fourth year-over-year U.S. monthly sales improvement in 2015, what was the rest of the auto industry accomplishing? (Read More…)

Long before Volkswagen tasked itself with overcoming the expenses of a developing dirty diesel scandal and the harm it caused to the brand’s already lackluster image in the United States, Volkswagen Of America was struggling to sell its small SUV during a small SUV boom.

Incidentally, that vehicle – the first-generation Tiguan – was never available in the United States with a diesel engine, a rarity in a Volkswagen lineup that provides diesel options to buyers of the Golf, Jetta, Passat, Beetle and Touareg.

Perhaps the option of a diesel would have made the original Tiguan more popular in the United States, but there were other profound problems that Volkswagen hopes to resolve when a stretched version of the second-generation Tiguan eventually arrives in North America late next year or in early 2017. Yes, Tiguan Mk2 is still a ways off. (Read More…)

Led by the Subaru XV Crosstrek and Jeep Renegade, U.S. sales of subcompact crossovers jumped 104 percent to nearly 43,000 units in August 2015, a year-over-year gain of 22,000 sales. August marked the second consecutive month in which segment-wide sales more than doubled.

The addition of new candidates certainly provides a massive boost to the nascent category, but most established players produced gains last month, as well. The subcompact CUVs which were on sale a year ago combined for a 7-percent increase in August and a 7-percent increase through the first eight months of 2015.

But five new competitors, including three of the segment’s five top sellers in August, produced 48 percent of all subcompact crossover sales in the United States last month. (Read More…)

Only weeks after TTAC’s managing editor publicly declared his yearning for a V8-powered Dodge Charger, I was driving the same V6-powered Charger that got Mr. Stevenson’s motor running.

His response, the response of a young man whose lifestyle necessitates no firm requirements from his transportation device: I want this car.

My response, the response of a slightly more aged man whose lifestyle necessitates the frequent carriage of strollers, the frequent installation of a Diono Radian RXT, and the frequent responsibility of ferrying lanky individuals in the rear seat: Big family cars ain’t what they used to be. (Read More…)

As the U.S. auto industry technically lost a small amount of new vehicle sales volume in August 2015, sales of the unappealing Cadillac ELR plunged 77 percent to the car’s lowest monthly total yet.

In fact, August 2015’s collapse of the Volt-based ELR’s sales comes precisely one year after the ELR reached its best-ever monthly volume.

196 ELRs were sold in America in August 2014, a figure which decreased by 85 units the very next month and by 151 units a year later. (Read More…)

What if an automobile manufacturer could develop a new product, bring it to market, never substantially update the product, and continue to sell that product at a similar pace year after year? That would be impressive. But Ford could not manage to execute that four-pronged action with the Ranger.

Yes, Ford originally developed a Ranger, brought the Ranger to the North American market, and didn’t bother to truly update the Ranger. The consistent sales pace aspect? Nope, didn’t happen.

U.S. Ranger sales declined in 11 consecutive years at the end of its tenure, from 2000 to 2010. The 28-percent year-over-year increase to 70,832 units in 2011 occurred as Ford cleared out the final Rangers at ridiculously low prices and buyers of small trucks who wanted a genuinely small truck picked up the Rangers that remained. (Read More…)

Beginning in September 2014, the Honda CR-V began a streak as America’s best-selling SUV/crossover, a streak which has now extended through July 2015. Eleven consecutive months is no mean feat — the Toyota Camry’s current streak as America’s best-selling car is only six months long.

The CR-V is strengthening, however. In July, year-over-year volume jumped 11 percent to 31,785 units, 2,532 units more than the second-ranked Ford Escape managed. During this increasingly lengthy period of dominance, no one challenger has really stood up to take the fight to the CR-V. (Read More…)

As the U.S. auto industry’s sales volume grew by more than 5 percent to 1.5 million units in July 2015, General Motors increased its July market share from 17.8 percent in 2014 to 18.0 percent in July 2015. GM says their retail sales jumped 14% last month. Total GM sales were up 6%.

Toyota Motor Sales saw their share of the U.S. market fall from 15 percent in July 2014 to 14.4 percent in July 2015 even as their premium Lexus division ended the month with more sales than BMW or Mercedes-Benz.  (Read More…)

As General Motors prepares to carve out space in between their best-selling utility vehicle, the Equinox, and their large three-row crossover, the Traverse, Ford reports significant improvement with the launch of their second-generation tweener crossover.

U.S. sales of the Ford Edge jumped 44 percent to 40,083 units in the second-quarter of 2015. The May 2015 total of 14,399 units was the best May ever for the Edge, which slots in between the Escape, one of America’s best-selling utility vehicles, and rubs up alongside the longer, three-row Explorer. (Read More…)

So many upper-crust products sit at the top of their respective automaker’s lineup and do little more than look pretty. They are flagships, technological showcases, standard bearers.

On the other hand, there’s the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, with its base price of more than $95,000 in the United States. Flagship? Yes. Technological showcase? That, too. Standard-bearer? Of course. But the S-Class is also popular. (Read More…)

As U.S. sales of the best-selling midsize car — and best-selling car overall – declined 3% during the first-half of 2015, one would assume that an opportunity opens up for its nearest rivals. But while the Camry has fallen slightly, the Honda Accord tumbled 16% and the Nissan Altima slipped 3%.

Surely then, the second tier of candidates would make real headway? No, in the midst of this convenient moment, the Ford Fusion is down 7%. In fact, on a year-over-year basis, Fusion sales have declined in eight consecutive months. (Read More…)

Dodge’s share of the U.S. market has been sliding with great consistency for years. Much of the blame for the dramatic drop-off in 2009 — Dodge’s market share fell from 5.9% in 2008 to 3.1% the next year — was a direct result of losing Ram trucks to a self-titled Ram division.

But even the post-Ram Dodge of today owns a significantly smaller portion of the market than the post-Ram Dodge of, for instance, 2013. Although America’s midsize car market is declining, it certainly does Dodge no favours that the brand now possesses no midsize car. The Chrysler 200 is now left to avenge the Avenger’s blood. (Read More…)

Remember when the U.S. auto industry was very much an American auto industry? No? I don’t, either.

But there was a time when an American car was an American car because it was made by an American car company in America.  (Read More…)