After selling in virtually identical numbers in 2013, light truck sales in the United States overtook car sales in 2014 for the first time since 2011.
Light trucks, a category which encompasses everything from pickups and body-on-frame SUVs to minivans and commercial vans to SUVs and very car-like crossovers, accounted for 52% of U.S. new vehicle volume in 2014, up from 49.9% in 2013. (Read More…)
2014 was a record-setting year for the Land Rover brand in the United States, and the brand accomplished this feat even though the majority of Land Rover sales were generated by upper-crust Range Rover vehicles.
With the Discovery Sport set to arrive shortly in place of the oft-rejected LR2 (née Freelander), the potential for greater growth at the Land Rover brand becomes much more apparent.
• 51,465 Land Rovers sold in America in 2014
• Two top tier models account for six out of every ten Land Rover sales
• Discovery Sport expected to be volume model
60% of Land Rover sales in the U.S. in 2014 were produced by the Range Rover Sport (base price: $63,350) and Range Rover (base price: $83,495). The Range Rover Evoque, a very premium-priced small luxury utility, was the brand’s third-ranked vehicle. The Evoque was responsible for nearly a quarter of all Land Rover sales, more than the LR2 and LR4 combined.
In 2014, for the fifth consecutive year, the BMW 3-Series was America’s top-selling premium brand vehicle.
And now for the qualifying statements.
The “car” that topped the premium brand leaderboard in 2014 was the 3-Series and 4-Series. That’s the way BMW USA chose to release their sales figures when the 3-Series nameplate divested itself of key assets in the fall of 2013. In a sense then, this is the way it’s always been, since the 4-Series used to be part of the 3-Series family.
• 3-Series hasn’t been outsold in premium category since 2009
• 3-Series/4-Series generate four out of every ten U.S. BMW sales
• 3-Series/4-Series was America’s 16th-best-selling car in 2014
However, the 4-Series lineup has expanded to include very 3-Series-like cars like the 4-Series Gran Coupe even as the 3-Series lineup expanded to include not just a sedan and a wagon but also a hatchback, the 3-Series Gran Turismo.
The Mercedes-Benz CLA-Class and Audi A3 attained almost identical levels of popularity in the United States in 2014.
True, Mercedes-Benz sold 27,365 CLAs over the last twelve months; Audi sold only 22,250 A3s during that period. That’s 23% more CLA sales than A3 sales.
• GLA arrival didn’t slow down CLA
• A3 and CLA increasingly popular, but not yet top sellers
But you’ll remember that the CLA arrived at the end of 2013’s third-quarter. The A3 sedan, a replacement for the A3 hatch which never sold as often as this new car, began trickling into dealers in February of this year but wasn’t readily available until April.
Reports last week that the Scion iQ is not long for this world came just weeks after Toyota USA issued a sales release showing that iQ volume was chopped in half in 2014.
One year earlier, Toyota’s sales report showed iQ sales falling 54% from 2012 levels.
• iQ sales decline every month
• Scion sales down 66% from 2006 high
More specifically, U.S. sales of the iQ tumbled in each of the last 24 months. Only once, in December 2012, the iQ’s first opportunity at posting a year-over-year improvement, did it do so, surging 32% compared with its first month on the market.
2014 was the fifth consecutive year in which the Chevrolet Camaro outsold its two key rivals in the United States.
2015, however, could present far different results.
Leading up to the sixth-generation Mustang’s arrival, the Camaro led the Mustang by nearly 11,000 sales through the first ten months of 2014.
• Second-best year for fifth-gen Camaro
• Mustang was on a roll at the end of 2014
• Challenger growth continues in sixth consecutive year
But Ford sold 8728 Mustangs in America in November, a 62% year-over-year improvement, basically double the number of Camaros sold that month.
With the hatchback Note available for the duration of the 2014 calendar year, Nissan’s Versa lineup posted huge year-over-year gains in the United States in 2014.
Total Versa volume jumped 19%, or 22,429 units, to a class-leading 139,781 sales in 2014.
• Segment grows in a stagnant car market
• Fit ranked second in the category in 2014 Q4
• New Mazda 2 arrives this year
Had Versa volume declined 19%, it still would have ended 2014 as America’s top-selling subcompact. The Versa’s market share in the strict confines of this nine-car subcompact category grew from 23.3% in 2013 to 26.8% in 2014.
The U.S. market, long in need of an affordable, compact, rear-wheel-drive sports car, allowed the hype to initially take hold. The Scion FR-S’s best ever month was its first full month of availability – June 2012 – when 2684 copies were sold.
But in the second-half of the FR-S’s first full year in the U.S., FR-S volume slid 4%.
• FR-S accounts for 24% of U.S. Scion sales
• Scion accounts for 2.4% of Toyota Motor Sales, USA, Inc. volume
• Subaru sold 25,492 WRX/STi Imprezas in 2014
The numbers weren’t terribly low. 18,327 FR-Ss were sold in the U.S. in 2013. But they weren’t terribly high, either. Nissan, for a reference point, sold 36,728 350Zs in 2003.
Regardless, only 18 months into the car’s tenure, monthly declines became notable because of their severity and consistency. (Read More…)
Curious fact: America’s two best-selling premium brands and one of the two fastest-growing premium brands are the three premium brands which rely the least upon SUVs and crossovers in the U.S. market.
We correctly believe that much of the growth in the luxury vehicle sector over the coming half-decade will be in the CUV category, but there’s no denying that the major players established productive, popular, profit-generating passenger car lineups many years ago.
• Most new crossovers introduced in 2014 were “premium”
• Majority of Jaguar-Land Rover, Acura, Lincoln sales come from utilities
• Porsche and Cadillac generate half their U.S. volume with utilities
SUVs and crossovers are assisting these brands – BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Audi – in finding new avenues for growth, but their car divisions are large volume tools.
The same can’t be said for many of the mid-tier and low-volume luxury brands. Cars accomplish very little for Acura and Jaguar-Land Rover, generate only half of Cadillac’s volume, and produce only 45% of Lincoln sales. (Read More…)
U.S. sales of SUVs and crossovers grew at twice the rate of the overall industry in 2014 and at nearly three times the rate of the market for all passenger cars, pickup trucks, and vans.
There’s no hiding the fact that many of these SUVs and crossovers are nothing more than cars on stilts. (And some have all but forgotten their stilts.) But consumers have drawn a line between vehicles like the Audi A3 and Audi Q3; between the Ford Escape and Ford Focus; between the Honda Fit and the upcoming Honda HR-V.
• Ten top sellers account four out of every ten utility vehicle sales
• Most all-new utility nameplates come from premium brands
Sales on the car side of the ledger expanded hardly at all in 2014; sales on the utility vehicle side jumped 12%.
Subtract the growth achieved by America’s 19 most meaningfully improved vehicles in 2014 and the U.S. auto industry was up just 1.0%, not 5.9%, last year.
The Audi A3; BMW 3-Series/4-Series; Chevrolet Cruze and Silverado; GMC Sierra; Honda Accord and CR-V; Jeep Cherokee; Kia Soul; Nissan Sentra, Rogue, and Versa; Ram P/U; Subaru Forester and Outback; and Toyota’s Camry, Corolla, RAV4, and 4Runner all produced in excess of 20,000 more sales in 2014 than in 2013, combining for 764,885 extra sales in a market which grew by approximately 927,000 units. (Read More…)
Growth in America’s midsize car market was slow in 2014, the second consecutive year in which the overall auto industry moved forward at an impressive rate while midsize car growth was unimpressive.
• Altima and Fusion set nameplate records
• Camry tops second-ranked Accord by 40K
• The Big 5 grew their share of the segment
Yet in 2014, the most dominant midsize cars did in fact expand their sales at a healthy clip. The top-selling Toyota Camry was up 5%, year-over-year. Honda’s Accord, the second-ranked midsize car, posted a 6% improvement compared with 2013. Sales of the third-ranked Nissan Altima, America’s fourth-best-selling car overall, climbed 5% to a record-high 335,644 units.
General Motors’ U.S. market share in the small/midsize truck category grew in December 2014 to 21.1% from 13.9% in November. According to inventory statistics from Automotive News, GM dealers had approximately 9400 Chevrolet Colorados and GMC Canyons in stock at the beginning of December.
• Tacoma and Frontier rising
• GM earning market share
• Small/midsize trucks account for 1/10 pickup sales
Yet a booming auto industry and a surging pickup market meant that even with this new level of competition from the GM midsize pickups, widely regarded as the modern members of the class, the Toyota Tacoma and Nissan Frontier each posted 12% year-over-year improvements in December.
Pickup trucks soared to their highest total of 2014 during the month of December, climbing 18% to 237,635, equal to 14% of the overall auto industry’s new vehicle volume. Truck sales jumped 6% to 2.3 million in 2014.
• GM twins outsold F-Series in December
• F-Series outsold GM twins in 2014
• Ram makes biggest market share gains
Full-size trucks generated 88.9% of all pickup sales activity in December, down from 90.1% a year ago as General Motors contributed more than 5500 Colorado/Canyon sales to the mix, strengthening the small corner of the market held by small/midsize pickups.
Led by big GM improvements, the full-size sector grew by 30,522 units last month. The Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra combined to outsell the Ford F-Series, as it transition to a 2015 F-150, by 6918 units. Joining GM’s surge, Ram P/U sales shot up 32% to 44,222 units, making December the third month in 2014 that Ram sales shot beyond the 40K mark. (Read More…)
Auto sales in the United States grew nearly 11% in December 2014, a fitting ending to a year of impressive growth for the overall auto industry. The biggest leaps forward in December were achieved by three volume brands: Chrysler, Kia, and Ram. Scion and Cadillac continued to spiral. Volkswagen reported a modest increase for the third consecutive year in comparison with what was a disappointing fourth-quarter in 2013.
• Ford led all brands in U.S. sales in 2014
• GM is the top-selling manufacturer with its four brands
• Maserati’s 171% year-over-year improvement led all automakers in 2014
• Jeep and Ram combined for 303,190 more sales in 2014 than in 2013
The market supported more than 16 million sales for the first time 2007 with strength rising most particularly in the SUV/crossover sector, but also from top-selling cars. Toyota’s Camry, the best-selling car in America, climbed to 428,606 sales. The Nissan Altima set an annual sales record. The Honda Accord reached a seven-year high.
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