With six months in, 2018 is starting to look like a stabilizing year for new car sales.
U.S. June auto sales numbers are beginning to trickle in Tuesday as the first six months of 2018 appear to be a trend toward equilibrium in an industry which has seen erratic swings over the past two years. Let’s dig in.
Our first two reporting manufacturers are Toyota and FCA. The former managed a slight bump in sales over June of last year, with a strong performance from its core brand and a lukewarm month from Lexus. FCA, by comparison, is on a tear.
After some fits and starts early in the year, the company’s Jeep and Ram brands seem to have hit their strides, which pushed the automaker to its best June retail numbers since 2004. Yes, retail. Jeep Wrangler remains the second-best-selling vehicle in FCA’s entire portfolio with more than 23,000 units sold in June and more than 133,000 for the year. Only the Ram pickup line does better.
It has been a couple of years since we’ve speculated regarding Jeep’s ability to clear a million units sold in a single year. Six months in, the brand is at 495,000 and change. Keep an eye on that.
Mazda reported another fantastic month, up more than 20 percent compared to last June on strong sales from–you guessed it–its entire CX lineup. It’s also worth noting that Mazda6 had a bit of a boom month, though its YTD sales haven’t budged in either direction. Some may call that a win in a sales climate this hostile to sedans.
Speaking of hostility and climate, Volkswagen also reported an uptick in June, with a 5.7-percent monthly increase and total sales just under 29,000. All of Volkswagen’s gains are attributable to Atlas and Tiguan, as has been the trend for the year. Every other vehicle family is down significantly.
Since June marked the end of the second quarter, we get to include GM sales in this month’s story. Unfortunately, given the lack of granularity in its results, it’s difficult to talk about trends. A few noteworthy things do stick out. For starters, Buick Regal sales are up, which is good news given the expansion of its lineup for 2018. The bad news? They’ve still only sold just over 8,000 of them so far this year. That makes it a slightly stronger seller than the Chevrolet Bolt EV.
With six months in, 2018 is starting to look like a stabilizing year for new car sales.
U.S. June auto sales numbers are beginning to trickle in Tuesday as the first six months of 2018 appear to be a trend toward equilibrium in an industry which has seen erratic swings over the past two years. Let's dig in.
Our first two reporting manufacturers are Toyota and FCA. The former managed a slight bump in sales over June of last year, with a strong performance from its core brand and a lukewarm month from Lexus. FCA, by comparison, is on a tear.
After some fits and starts early in the year, the company's Jeep and Ram brands seem to have hit their strides, which pushed the automaker to its best June retail numbers since 2004. Yes, retail. Jeep Wrangler remains the second-best-selling vehicle in FCA's entire portfolio with more than 23,000 units sold in June and more than 133,000 for the year. Only the Ram pickup line does better.
It has been a couple of years since we've speculated regarding Jeep's ability to clear a million units sold in a single year. Six months in, the brand is at 495,000 and change. Keep an eye on that.
Mazda reported another fantastic month, up more than 20 percent compared to last June on strong sales from--you guessed it--its entire CX lineup. It's also worth noting that Mazda6 had a bit of a boom month, though its YTD sales haven't budged in either direction. Some may call that a win in a sales climate this hostile to sedans.
Speaking of hostility and climate, Volkswagen also reported an uptick in June, with a 5.7-percent monthly increase and total sales just under 29,000. All of Volkswagen's gains are attributable to Atlas and Tiguan, as has been the trend for the year. Every other vehicle family is down significantly.
Since June marked the end of the second quarter, we get to include GM sales in this month's story. Unfortunately, given the lack of granularity in its results, it's difficult to talk about trends. A few noteworthy things do stick out. For starters, Buick Regal sales are up, which is good news given the expansion of its lineup for 2018. The bad news? They've still only sold just over 8,000 of them so far this year. That makes it a slightly stronger seller than the Chevrolet Bolt EV.
