After averaging around than 230,000 U.S. sales between 2007 and 2013, a period in which Honda averaged 295,000 annual Civic sales and 324,000 annual Accord sales, the CR-V was the second-best-selling Honda in America for the first time ever in 2014.

Much of the CR-V’s Civic-besting work was done in a second half which saw Civic volume slide 10%. Moreover, 54% of the CR-V’s 2014 U.S. volume was generated in a strong second-half.

But the CR-V didn’t stop with the Civic. In each of 2014’s final three months, the CR-V also outsold the Accord, America’s second-best-selling car. (Read More…)

Mini says increased demand for new three and five-door Mini and foreordained plans are bringing production of the Coupe and Roadster to an end.

Also, it turns out people didn’t want less practical versions of a car that already lacked a certain degree of flexibility.

Surely Mini would have thought twice about cancelling production of the two cars – or at least considered replacing them with new versions off the new Mini platform – had sales been strong. (Read More…)

After averaging 7500 Wrangler sales in the five Januarys leading up to 2015, Jeep sold 11,683 Wranglers in America last month, a January record for the nameplate.

Record-setting figures are nothing new for the Wrangler, of course. Chrysler Group/FCA broke their annual Wrangler one-year-old sales record by 13,833 units in 2013 and then smashed that with a 19,826-unit, 13% improvement in the 2014 calendar year.

Year-over-year, the pace of U.S. Wrangler sales expansion is even more impressive of late.
Over the last four months, Wrangler sales are up 17%. (Read More…)

Compared with the previous month, November 2014 saw smaller automakers pick up market share at the expense of America’s largest automobile manufacturers. General Motors and Ford Motor Company combined to lose nearly a full percentage point in November even as the Volkswagen Group, Subaru, and Daimler AG combined to equal that in terms of gains.  (Read More…)

One month after the Chrysler Group outsold Toyota USA and grabbed 13.6% of the U.S. auto market, Toyota, Lexus, and Scion (14.1%) combined to outsell Chrysler, Dodge, Fiat, Jeep, and Ram (13.3%) by 10,000 units in October 2014.

As is the norm, this month’s chart shows something of a Big Four, or an Expanded Big Seven. GM, Ford, Toyota, and Chrysler generated six out of every ten U.S. auto sales in October. Throw in Honda, Nissan, and Hyundai-Kia, and there’s only around 15% of all auto sales left over for the Volkswagen Group, BMW, Daimler, Subaru, Mazda, and a handful of truly niche auto brands.

Compared with October of last year, Nissan’s market share (Infiniti included) grew from 7.5% to 8.0%. The Chrysler Group’s year-over-year market share growth meant a surge from 11.6% in October 2013 to last month’s 13.3% as they managed to sell 30,000 more vehicles in October 2014 than in October 2013.

Timothy Cain is the founder of GoodCarBadCar.net, which obsesses over the free and frequent publication of U.S. and Canadian auto sales figures.

Auto sales in the United States rose 9.4% compared with September 2013 to 1.245M in September 2014. Pickup trucks climbed above 190,000 units for the third consecutive month. The Honda Accord unseated the Toyota Camry for the second time in two months. Chrysler Group used pickup trucks, minivans, and Jeep to generate 68% of the company’s volume as their car sales slid 7%.

Chrysler Group’s market share increased to a Toyota-beating 13.6% from 12.6% a year ago and 12.5% in August of this year. GM’s market share grew to 17.9% from 16.4% in September 2013 as Silverado volume shot up by more than 50%. Ford Motor Company, on the other hand, suffered a decline in market share, falling from 16.2% in September of last year and 15.5% in August of this year to 14.4% in September 2014.

Timothy Cain is the founder of GoodCarBadCar.net, which obsesses over the free and frequent publication of U.S. and Canadian auto sales figures.

As U.S. auto sales grew 5.5% to more than 1.58 million in August 2014, GM’s market share fell from 18.4% in August 2013 to 17.2% last month. Ford Motor Company’s share fell by seven-tenths of a percentage point, year-over-year. American Honda’s share of the total sales pie fell from 11.1% to 10.5% even as the Accord became America’s best-selling car with more than 50,000 sales.

Toyota’s share improved slightly to 15.5%, while the Chrysler Group/FCA shot up from 11% in August 2013 to 12.5% in August 2014. Nissan USA’s market share grew by one half of a percentage point.

Compared with July 2014, GM, FoMoCo, and Hyundai-Kia, all lost significant portions. Toyota USA moved up from 15%, American Honda jumped a full percentage point, and the Chrysler Group climbed from 11.7%.

Having reached a four-year peak in 2012, the year in which the FR-S first arrived, sales at Toyota USA’s Scion division slid 7.1% in 2013.

Through the first seven months of 2014, every Scion model except the tC is selling less often than they did one year ago. The iQ’s 47% drop equals 1244 fewer sales through seven months. The FR-S’s 24% decrease translates to 2802 fewer sales.

Scion sold 173,000 new vehicles in 2006, the brand’s best year on record. With likely no more than 65,000 sales in 2014, Scion will have declined 62% from that point. (It was, not surprisingly, worse between 2009 and 2011.)

Scion’s Toyota parent company, however, sells a rather large number of vehicles in America. With just 2.6% of U.S. Toyota volume coming from Scion – 12% from Lexus – it’s not as though this has to be a long-term headache. Twelve different nameplates, on their own, outsell the Scion brand as a whole.

General Motors’ U.S. market share held steady at 17.8% in July compared with the same period one year ago. In comparison with June of this year, however, GM’s portion slid from 18.8%. GM’s volume fell 4.2% from 267,461 in June to 256,160 units in July even as overall new vehicle sales grew 1%.

Moving ahead from June then, which automakers produced the gains at GM’s expense, at Ford’s and Chrysler/FCA’s expense, too? Toyota and Nissan, mostly. With a nearly one percentage point increase, Toyota produced a very high-volume July thanks to record RAV4 sales, predictably lofty Camry volume, and Lexus’ rise to the top of the premium pile.

Nissan owned 7.7% of the U.S. market in June; 8.3% in July. The Versa, Sentra, and Leaf combined for 36,228 July sales, up from 22,310 in July 2013 and 31,057 in June of this year.

Meanwhile, compared with the prior month, American Honda’s share of the U.S. market grew from 9.1% to 9.5% on the strength of the Accord and CR-V, America’s second-best-selling car and top-selling utility vehicle, respectively.

(Read More…)