On Monday, Ford and Toyota estimated a low-13 million seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR), while GM estimated a number in the high 12s.
The automakers face slow growth rather than a double-dip recession, says GM sales veep Don Johnson. The auto industry remains a bright spot in consumer demand because a lot of buyers are replacing aging cars. Not to mention (as no one did) cars and trucks coming off three-year leases from the beginning of the recession with stickers higher than their owners could afford.
Pickup trucks had a good month at the Detroit Three. GM trucks were up 34.3 percent, with the Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra selling 57,602 combined. With heavy advertising and incentives, GM expects to have its truck inventory back down to a 90-day supply, or 200,000 units, by the end of the year.
Ford sold 54,410 F-Series, and Chrysler sold 24,522 Ram pickups, helping it edge past Toyota Motor Sales, which remained beset with supply problems related to the March earthquake and tsunami in Japan.
Ford’s utilities were up 35 percent overall in September ’11, versus September ’10, led by the aged Escape and the new Explorer. As for pickups, strong sales to small businesses and contractors have helped, though certainly there can’t be too much demand resulting from home construction and repair.
The 20k+ Ford Escape sales are puzzling. The much newer Chevy Equinox also continues to sell well, but it needs to be combined with GMC Terrain sales to better the Ford.
While GM’s Chevy Cruze again led compact sales last month, its soon-to-be-replaced Malibu took a dive. Meanwhile, the new Ford Focus missed the top five in compact sales, while its soon-to-be-replaced Fusion was the third-bestselling midsize sedan. Ford blames short supply of the ’12 Focus, which launched in March. Last month, Ford said a large portion of its 14,093 Focus sales in August were of the new model. Could it be that many buyers are willing to spend a couple of dollars more per month to buy a Fusion, especially as gasoline prices have come down below $3.50 per gallon in September?
Hard to say, since Ford declined to break down old-model vs. new model Focus last month. Its Fiesta is languishing at 3,967 last month, up 30.1 percent from a start-up period September ’10. While that doesn’t sound bad, it’s off-pace from earlier this year. Meanwhile, Kia sold 6,666 Souls last month, no doubt making it the second bestselling hatchback in the U.S., after the Toyota Prius.
Hatchbacks are popular in Europe with middle-class buyers because they offer utility, interior space and flexibility in a small package in a part of the world where cars are significantly more expensive. Middle-class Americans on a stricter budget than three or four years ago don’t want hatchbacks or station wagons, but they’re buying tall combinations of both, the crossover utility.
As for the Prius, Toyota’s U.S. sales chief, Bob Carter, says that with Japanese and U.S. factories back up to capacity this month, the company’s sales will be back in the plus column in October and through the rest of the year. Sales of its bestselling Camry fell September-over-September, but it still led midsize car sales here.
Of those 24k Camrys sold in September, a few new ’12 models had trickled in to dealerships at the end of the month. Usually at this point in the old model’s cycle, it would have about 40,000 leftovers in the U.S. inventory. Toyota has just 9,000 ’11 Camrys going into October, but it plans to have 35,000 new ’12 models available through the month.
Before we go to the numbers, let me remind you to follow me on Twitter @MT_Lassa, where I post sales number through the day, each month at the beginning of the month …
1. GM: 207,145, up 19.6 percent.
*Chevy Camaro was up 10.6 percent, to 6,994. Ford Mustang was off 12.3 percent, to 5,054. Dodge Challenger was up 6 percent, to 3,328.
*Chevrolet division sales rose 21.5 percent, to 147,611.
*Big pickups had a healthy month thanks to big incentives and advertising to reduce inventory. Chevrolet Silverado sales rose 35.8 percent, to 43,698 while GMC Sierra was up 25.5 percent, to 13,904, a total of 57,602 for the two truck models.
*Cruze remained the dominant Chevy sedan, at 18,097, with a total of 187,524 for the first three quarters of ’11. Malibu was off 31.8 percent, to 11,114 and Impala was up 13.4 percent, to 13,822.
*Chevy Equinox was up 32.9 percent, to 15,497, while GMC Terrain was up 44.7 percent, to 6,910. Cadillac SRX sales rose 21.7 percent to 4,901.
*Also following a heavy advertising campaign, Cadillac CTS sales were rebounding, up 24 percent, to 4,663.
*Buick Enclave was up 10.4 percent, to 4,868 while Regal was up 87.2 percent (sales were limited to German-built cars a year ago) to 3,325. Buick overall was up 5.6 percent, to 13,599. Cadillac was up 1 percent, to 12,741.
*Chevrolet sold 723 Volts. Total sales for the first three quarters was 3,895.
2. Ford Motor Company: 175,199, up 9 percent.
*The Ford brand totaled 168,181, up 14.4 percent. That leaves 7,018 for the Lincoln brand, off 6.6 percent.
*Ford sold 20,225 Escapes, up 41.3 percent. Explorer was up 203.6 percent over the wind-down of the old model, at 11,336 last month.
*Ford cites low Focus inventories for a 24.1 percent drop to 10,309.
*Fusion topped Focus and all Chevy sedans, at 19,510, up 22.6 percent.
*F-Series had its best September since 2007, up 14.7 percent, to 54,410.
*Ford moved 3,013 of its discontinued Crown Victorias, up 53.6 percent.
*Taurus was off 38.3 percent, to 4,305.
*MKX topped Lincoln sales, at 2,267, off 14.7 percent.
3. Chrysler LLC: 127,334, up 27 percent.
*Chrysler Group claimed its best September since 2007, though it must be noted that Mopar’s nadir in 2008-10 was worse than most other automakers. So its September ’11 over September ’10 results look particularly good.
*Jeep Wrangler was up 47 percent last month, to 11,388 while Grand Cherokee was off 3 percent, to 10,580. The Ram pickup remains Chryco’s bestseller, up 45 percent to 24,522.
*Minivans remain important. Chrysler Town & Country was up 16 percent, to 10,405 and Dodge Caravan was up 27 percent, to 10,203. Dodge Journey was up 29 percent, to 5,402.
*Chrysler 200 was the company’s bestselling car, up 87 percent over the Sebring to 8,709, while the 300 was up 50 percent, to 4,445.
4. Toyota Motor Sales (including Scion, Lexus): 121,451, off 17.5 percent.
*Camry fell 19.2 percent to 24,851.
*Corolla was off 23.3 percent, to 16,147.
*Lexus ES was off just 1.9 percent, to 3,627.
*Lexus RX was off 32.6 percent, to 5,003, or 1,907 units short of Cadillac SRX sales.
*Toyota RAV4 was off 47.9 percent, to 7,649.
*Tundra was off 3.3 percent, to 6,695, while Tacoma was off 7.8 percent, to 8,180.
*Prius was off 18.2 percent, to 9,325.
5. Nissan North America (with Infiniti): 92,964, up 25.3 percent.
*Altima was up 21.7 percent, to 24,356 units.
*Sentra was up 2.9 percent, to 8,105, while Versa was up 68.1 percent, to 11,800.
*Rogue was its bestselling SUV, up 29.1 percent, to 10,740.
*Infiniti breaks out coupe and sedan numbers for its bestseller, the G series. The G sedan was up 28.9 percent, to 3,940 and G coupe was off 20.3 percent, to 1,089.
*QX was the bestselling Infiniti SUV, up 46.7 percent, to 1,206.
6. American Honda (with Acura): 89,532, off 8 percent.
*Accord fell 13.8 percent, to 18,639.
*Civic fell 26.4 percent, to 13,724.
*Odyssey was up 14.7 percent, to 8,818.
*CRV was up 9.5 percent, to 19,604, as Honda says its trucks were up 7 percent for the month.
*Pilot was up 27.9 percent, to 10,306.
*Acura division was off 6.6 percent, to 10,010.
*TSX was its bestseller, at 3,112, up 37.9 percent. Of those, 261 were TSX wagons.
*MDX was off 28.3 percent, to 2,925.
7. Hyundai: 52,051, up 11.8 percent.
*Sonata leads with 18,181, off 13.5 percent.
*Elantra may be cannibalizing some Sonata sales. The compact was up 43 percent, to 14,386.
*Genesis was off 7.1 percent, to 3,000, including sedans and coupes.
*Hyundai/Kia sales combined would total 87,660.
8. Kia: 35,609, up 18.4 percent.
*Sorento was its bestseller, up 9.9 percent, to 11,112.
*Kia sold 6,191 Optimas, up 206 percent.
*Soul is the popular small hatchback sold in the U.S. that’s not a Mini, up 24.7 percent to 6,666.
9. Volkswagen of America: 27,036, up 35.6 percent.
*Jetta totaled 15,023, up 39.5 percent.
*The all-new, all-American, Chattanooga built Passat scored 3,176, up 339.9 percent over the old model’s September ’10 sales.
*Tiguan was up 22.8 percent, at 1,628.
*If it could be combined with Audi, VW’s U.S. sales would total 36,061.
10. BMW Group: 25,749, up 11.4 percent.
*Mini accounted for 3,999 of those, off 18.1 percent.
*BMW’s crossover utility vehicles accounted for 6,343, up 46.3 percent.
11. Mazda: 25,521, up 37.4 percent.
*3 was up 11.7 percent, at 8,929.
*CX-7 was up 90.8 percent, at 4,909.
*6 was up 52.4 percent, at 4,163.
12. Mercedes-Benz: 23,897, up 15.6 percent.
*C-Class was up 32.1 percent, to 6,865 and E-Class was off 8.6 percent, to 5,122.
*The new CLS moved 709 units, up 399.3 percent.
*GL-Class, at 2,541, up 27.8 percent, outsold the M-Class, which is making its transition to a new model, at 2,477, off 10.9 percent.
13. Subaru: 20,934, up 2.3 percent.
*It’s one of the smaller Japanese brands most affected by post-earthquake shortages.
*Outback led sales at 7,607, off 6.7 percent.
14. Audi: 9,725, up 19.3 percent.
*It’s the brand’s ninth record-breaking month in a row.
*The new A6 took 1,124 of those sales, up 42.8 percent.
*A4 was up 11.4 percent, to 2,690.
*Q5 was off 1.8 percent, to 2,235.
15. Mitsubishi: 5,803, up 17 percent.
*Best September for the brand since 2008.
16. Volvo: 5,042, up 21 percent.
*S60 was its top-seller, at 1,623.
17. Jaguar/Land Rover: 3,851, up 11 percent.
*Land Rover was up 10 percent, to 2,740.
*Jaguar was up 15 percent, to 1,111.
18. Porsche: 2,170, up 10 percent.
*Cayenne was up 15 percent, to 930.
*Panamera fell 17.6 percent, to 514 units, but still beat 911.
*The outgoing 911 was up 55 percent, to 504.
19. American Suzuki: 2,026, up 23 percent.
*SX4 was up 33 percent, to 997.
*Kizashi sales fell 2 percent, to 468.
20. Saab Cars North America: 429, off 61.9 percent.
*Reported at saabsunited.com
*Sales of the 9-5, at 191, edged out the 9-3, at 190.
*48 9-4xes sold.
Compacts:
1.) Chevy Cruze 18,097
2.) Toyota Corolla 16,147
3.) VW Jetta 15,023
4.) Hyundai Elantra 14,386
5.) Honda Civic 13,724
Midsize sedans:
1.) Toyota Camry 24,851
2.) Nissan Altima 24,356
3.) Ford Fusion 19,510
4.) Honda Accord 18,659
5.) Hyundai Sonata 18,181
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