Cars drive over trucks in sales
June 10, 2008 – 7:32 am | by adminIf there was any doubt before, it should be gone now: America is now officially a car market.
Even as industrywide sales of new vehicles declined 10.7% in May, sales of passenger cars were up 2.4%.
Meanwhile, sales of pickups, SUVs, minivans and crossovers plummeted 23.6%, according to monthly sales results released Tuesday.
Detroit’s automakers, who have long depended on their truck leadership for the bulk of their profits, suffered the worst declines as a result. Truck sales were down 36.9% at General Motors Corp., 25.6% at Ford Motor Co. and 24.3% at Chrysler LLC.
Nearly 60% of all new vehicles purchased in the United States last month were cars, with the smallest, most affordable ones performing best.
Jim Farley, Ford’s group vice president of marketing and communications, called the pace of the shift from trucks to cars “breathtaking.”
That automaker watched its critical F-Series pickup line, which has been the best-selling model in America for 26 years, lose the title for the month to the Honda Civic compact car. The Civic posted a record month, with more than 53,000 sales in May.
At GM, Mark LaNeve, vice president for sales, service and marketing in North America, characterized the market shift as a “real severe correction.”
“In the truck market we felt it, obviously,” he said.
None of Detroit’s automakers was able to offset truck declines with car sales. Car sales were down 13.7% at GM and 28.1% at Chrysler.
Ford, however, was able to ride the shifting consumer wave better than many of its rivals. With a growing stable of respectable cars, Ford posted a 3.8% gain in car sales, allowing the automaker to pick up critical market share in cars.
Ford sold 10.8% of the cars purchased in America last month, a gain of 0.2 percentage points. By contrast, Toyota Motor Corp. lost 0.4 percentage points of car share, ending the month with 21.2%.
At Ford, the Focus compact car, which is built locally in Wayne, was the star of the month.
Sales were up 53.2%. Excluding sales to fleet customers, Farley said that retail demand for the Focus was actually up 105%. Retail sales of the Focus, he noted, even outsold retail sales of the F-Series. The Focus is now the eighth best-selling vehicle in America.
As a result, Farley said that Ford would boost output of the car to 280,000 next year, up from 245,000 this year.
The big car winner of the month, though, was clearly Honda Motor Co.
The company’s Honda and Acura brands posted a combined 31.9% gain in car sales.
While the niche Mini brand posted a 52.8% gain in car sales, the only other major automaker to post a gain approaching Honda’s was Hyundai, which saw a 26.3% improvement.
Nissan Motor Co. car sales, including Infiniti, were up 18.7%, on the strength of the Nissan Altima midsize car, which posted a 43.6% gain over the same month a year ago.
While Toyota car sales, including Lexus and Scion brands, were flat, with a gain of 0.4%, the flagship brand now has six models in the top 20 rankings for America’s best-selling vehicles. That includes the Corolla compact car, Camry midsize car, Tacoma compact pickup, Prius hybrid car, RAV4 compact SUV and Yaris subcompact.
Honda seems to be benefiting from an unrelenting, long-term adherence to making high-quality cars that are affordable and fuel-efficient.
Sales were up 53% for the Fit subcompact car, 31.7% for the Civic compact car, 38.9% for the Accord midsize car. The Japanese automaker also saw its CR-V compact SUV among the Top 20 vehicles sold in America.
Honda, which also has a reputation for modesty, gave credit for its performance to the rapid shifts in the market.
“The dramatic increase in car sales appears to be one of the most profound shifts in automotive buying patterns in more than a decade,” Dick Colliver, executive vice president of American Honda, said in a statement. “Record sales of the Honda Civic clearly demonstrate an accelerated trend toward fuel efficiency.”