Cleveland, Ohio – Following March’s slight slowdown in auto sales, April was a massive return to strength with Honda, Nissan, and Kia reporting their best-ever results for the month.
Overall, sales were up about 3.5% with General Motors placing the seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) at about 17.6 million vehicles and FCA pegging it at 17.5 million. Either estimate shows a return to booming sales from March’s 16.6 million to 17 million SAAR estimates.
Generally, trucks, SUVs, and crossovers outperformed cars, with hybrids and electric vehicles have a particularly poor month. But some of the biggest successes in April were on the small car end of the market.
Highlights by automaker include:
- General Motors: 259,557, -3.5%. With several high-volume models going through new-model changeovers (Buick LaCrosse, Chevrolet Cruze), GM was down in each of its four brands. But retail sales were up as the automaker continues slashing low-profit sales to rental-car companies. The bright spot for GM was the redesigned Chevy Malibu. Total Malibu sales were up about 25%, and retail sales jumped 53%. GM officials say they expect similar increases when more Cruze models hit dealerships in the coming months and when the Buick LaCrosse launches later this year.
- Ford Motor Co.: 231,316, 4.0%. Car sales were down, crossovers and SUVs were up slightly, but trucks and vans rocketed forward in April, pulling Ford’s overall results up. F-Series truck sales were up 12.6%, and company officials say the F-150 has passed 250,000 in sales this year, the fastest start for pickup sales in 11 years. Transit van sales are growing even faster, up 31.8% in April. To put that in perspective, a year ago, Ford sold one Transit van for every six F-Series trucks. This year, the ratio is closer to 5-to-1.
- Toyota Motor Sales USA Inc.: 211,125, 3.8%. Car sales were down for all models except for two Scions, vehicles that will soon be rebranded as Toyotas. But with trucks and SUVs up 20%, the automaker’s overall results climbed in April. The RAV4, Highlander, 4Runner, and Sequoia all posted big gains on the SUV side of the business, helping make up for a 21.7% plunge in Prius hybrid sales. The hybrid weakness wasn’t limited to Toyota as Honda posted a 79.8% drop for gas-electric combos. The all-electric Nissan Leaf was down 49.3%.
- FCA US LLC: 199,631, 5.6%. Sales of two Jeep vehicles – the Compass small SUV and Renegade small crossover, more than doubled in April, so once again, Jeep overcame weakness with other FCA brands. Closeout sales on Town & Country minivans, as Chrysler launches the new Pacifica that replaces it, led to an 82% jump in the family movers. But a 60% drop in Chrysler 200 car sales erased those gains. Dodge sales were down 3%, mainly because of a 49% drop in Dart small car sales, but the Ram truck and van line was up 12%.
- Honda Motor America: 148,829, 14.4%. The big exception to the trucks-up, cars-down trend was Honda. Thanks to a redesigned Civic, car sales leapt 15.5%. More important, for bragging rights at least, the 24.5% increase in Civic sales puts that car firmly in first place in its class after decades of coming in No. 2 to Toyota’s Corolla. Year-to-date, Honda has sold 122,634 Civics to Toyota’s 116,371 Corollas. On the truck side of the business, most vehicles reported flat numbers, but the new HR-V small crossover brought that division’s total sales up 13.6%.
- Nissan Group: 123,861, 12.8%. Nissan’s car sales grew even more quickly than Honda’s, thanks to a more than doubling of the Maxima sedan and strong increases for the Sentra compact and the Altima mid-sized car. The record April was also helped along by the Rogue. Though its 6.5% increase is anemic compared to the Altima’s 28.8% leap, Rogue had been growing at double digits, and it’s getting pretty scarce in showrooms. Nissan will soon be capacity limited on the growth of the vehicle.
- Hyundai/Kia: 118,721, -2.1%. Hyundai’s car-heavy lineup pulled that brand down 8.5% during the month with its highest-volume sedans – the Sonata mid-sized and Elantra compact – down a combined 30.8%. Kia, on the other hand, posted gains with cars, SUVs, and crossovers. The Forte, another small car bucking the downward trend, was up 35.6%, thanks to a redesign.
- Volkswagen: 27,112, -9.7%. The Tiguan small crossover jumped 58.4%. Every other VW vehicle was down, and in many cases down sharply. The Beetle fell 51.0%, the Touareg large SUV was down 29.4%, and the Jetta family fell 8.6%.
Source: Automakers