Conventionally pretty, it is not. But the Lexus NX is a hit.

The NX200t and NX300h combined to generate 4,014 U.S. sales in May 2015, the best month yet for the six-month-old NX line. Year-to-date, 16,546 copies of the NX have been sold in America. Since the end of November, 19,473 NXs have found their way into driveways across America.

Lexus, of course, has a tradition of building wildly popular premium crossovers. The RX is perennially America’s top-selling premium utility vehicle. (Read More…)

After averaging fewer than 1,200 monthly spring sales in 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013, the launch of the C7 presented Chevrolet with more than 3,000 sales in March and in April and in May 2014.

Surely that’s all because of pent-up demand, right? After the C6 battled quite respectably through a recession, the craziness of the C7 was bound to generate a great deal of initial demand.

And yet one year later, long since its launch, the Corvette is selling just as well. Better, in fact. (Read More…)

The Ford Fiesta is on track in 2015 to celebrate a seventh consecutive year as the best-selling vehicle in the United Kingdom. A streak which began in 2009 – following the Focus’s own tenure atop the leaderboard – appears completely secure now that the Fiesta has outsold its nearest rival by 19,000 units over the course of just five months.

The Fiesta is not a popular car by the standards with which Americans identify popularity. On this side of the pond, for example, the Ford F-Series is America’s best-selling line of vehicles, but the F-Series accounts for 4.3% of the overall auto industry’s volume. The Fiesta generates 5.3% of UK auto industry volume. (Read More…)

During a month in which American Honda reported the brand’s first 6,381 HR-V sales, a month in which Subaru and Mitsubishi reported record XV Crosstrek and Outlander Sport sales, a month in which Jeep sold another 4,416 Renegades, GM’s smallest crossovers combined for their highest sales total thus far, as well.

11,107 Buick Encores and Chevrolet Traxes (Traxi? Trai?) were sold in the United States in May 2015. (Read More…)

Nissan USA’s Maxima sales figures are about to look very good. Oh, not in comparison with, for instance, Nissan’s own Altima, one of America’s best-selling cars, but rather, in comparison with recent Nissan Maxima sales figures.

New, eighth-generation Maximas are beginning to arrive at dealers. These cars, as you might expect, replace the seventh-generation Maxima, a car that was launched back in 2008, just at the onset of a recession.

The aged Maxima, therefore, has appeared particularly unwell of late. With poor demand and few available Maximas to speak of, May 2015 volume was cut in half in the United States, year-over-year. (Read More…)

You thought you saw one once, didn’t you? A hint of blue trim was visible in the distance; some unique badging, as well.

But then when you Googled the images at home later, you realized that no, the front fascia was too normal. You saw the ninth-generation Honda Accord’s hybrid model, not the plug-in hybrid.

Indeed, spotting a Honda Accord Plug-In Hybrid is now statistically not all that different from catching a glimpse of a Porsche 918 Spyder. You roar ahead, trying to get a closer look, but it’s already pulled into Jerry Seinfeld’s exclusive parking garage. Or in the case of the Plug-In Hybrid, a Honda executive’s enclosed charging station.

As if Honda dealers haven’t had a hard enough time stocking Accord Hybrids, the Accord Plug-In Hybrid was so rarely built that only 1,030 have been sold in the United States since the car arrived in January 2013. That’s an average of 36 sales per month. No wonder Honda is, wait for it, pulling the plug.  (Read More…)

Hyundai’s U.S. operations produced record sales in calendar year 2014 and in the process outsold Kia – which also reported record sales last year – by an average of 12,000 sales per month. That gap was narrower than in 2013, when Hyundai typically outsold Kia by more than 15,000 sales per month.

But after outselling its Kia partner by 6,206 units in January of this year, 8475 units in February, 16,248 in March (Hyundai Motor America’s best ever month), and 14,727 units in April, Hyundai’s favourable gap narrowed to only 1,177 units in May.  (Read More…)

In each of the last five months, General Motors has failed to sell more than 1,800 copies of the CTS. Sub-2K CTS sales months are unheard-of. Even in 2012, when CTS volume slid 15%, Cadillac averaged 3,914 CTS sales per month in the United States and never fell below 2,300.

CTS volume dropped 31% in 2013 and another 4% in 2014. However, over the course of the last two calendar years, Cadillac averaged 2,644 CTS sales per month and never slid below the 2,000-unit mark.

In 2015, the CTS has been hit even harder. (Read More…)

Four out of every ten new vehicles sold in May 2015 in the United States by Fiat Chrysler Automobiles were Jeeps, ten years after Jeep accounted for just 20% of Chrysler Group’s U.S. sales.

The automaker’s 4% year-over-year improvement was powered in large part by Jeep’s 13% gain. FCA volume improved by 8,000 units despite a 58% decrease in minivan volume. How’d they do it?

(Read More…)

Through the first five months of 2015, the Toyota Camry opened up a lead of nearly 36,000 units over the Nissan Altima in the race to end the year as America’s best-selling midsize car.

Aside from popularity, the Camry and Altima – as well as nearly every intermediate car on the market – share another factor in common: their sales are declining. (Read More…)

In May 2015, for the fifth consecutive month, more than one-third of the new vehicles sold in the United States were SUVs and crossovers. Year-over-year, the share of the market earned by utility vehicles increased from slightly less than 32% to slightly more than 34%, a gain equal to 50,000 extra sales in a market which saw passenger car volume tumble by nearly 30,000 units.

Led by the Honda CR-V, which was actually down 1% in May 2015, the U.S. SUV/crossover market was strengthened by new products last month. May was the second full month for the Jeep Renegade in what turned out to be the highest-volume month in the Jeep brand’s history. Not only did Jeep sell more than 20,000 Wranglers for the first time ever, not only did Jeep break the Cherokee’s sales record, but they also sold 4,416 copies of the Renegade. (Read More…)

General Motors earned 17.9% of the U.S. auto industry’s sales volume in May 2015, a drop from 18.5% one month ago but a slight improvement compared with May 2014, when GM’s market share stood at 17.7%.

In May 2015, GM’s U.S. sales grew at a 3% clip, twice the rate of improvement posted by the overall auto industry. GM’s gains came mainly as a result of improved pickup truck volume and a strong month for Lambda crossovers. (Read More…)

Ford Motor Company’s Transit Connect has seen the number of its direct rivals rapidly expand over the last two years. Not only must the Transit Connect fend off challenges from the Nissan NV200, now Chevrolet sells a version of the Nissan Van and FCA has imported the Fiat Doblo as the Ram ProMaster City.

Nevertheless, Ford still owns more than half the market for small commercial vans. Through the first four months of 2015, a period in which small commercial van volume in the United States has increased 58%, the Transit Connect’s market share stood at 55%. True, that’s down from 63% in the equivalent period one year ago. But a year ago, there was no such thing as a Chevrolet City Express or Ram ProMaster City. Moreover, Transit Connect volume has increased dramatically. Its 38% year-over-year improvement translates to 4,201 extra sales for Ford MoCo over just four months. (Read More…)

As recently as 2009, Dodge was the sixth-best-selling auto brand in the United States.

But through the first four months of 2015, Dodge is the tenth-best-selling auto brand in America. Granted, Dodge volume has fallen 15% year-over-year, but the real reason for Dodge’s lower ranking is that the Dodge of today isn’t the Dodge of yesterday.  (Read More…)

We’re accustomed to seeing outdated sports cars stumble as they age.

They’re as capable as they were when launched, of course, but demand for the cars often decreases rapidly. Those who were interested in the stylistic proposition already bought one. Those who saw them as paragons of performance encounter newer models with a greater dynamic portfolio.

Consider the Scion FR-S, sales of which plunged 23% in its second full year in the United States; sales of which declined 29% in the first four months of 2015.

Perhaps exacerbated by falling fuel prices, the sharp downturn in sales of two particularly famous, unconventionally powered hatchbacks is vaguely reminiscent of a sports car nameplate’s yo-yoing. A Camry-like ability to sustain demand right up until the new model arrives in dealers? Not for the Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Volt. (Read More…)