U.S. car sales drop, SUVs gain favour

With sport utility vehicles taking over American roads, passenger cars are in rapid decline.

Sales of sedans, coupes and sports cars are on pace for their worst year since 2009, the year when industrywide new-vehicle deliveries plunged to a threedecade low and GM and Chrysler went through bankruptcy.

U.S. passenger car sales fell to a low of 5.4 million in 2009 before bouncing back to 7.6 million by 2014, according to data from Erich Merkle, Ford Motor Co.’s U.S. sales analyst.

Since then, deliveries have dropped back to 6.1 million in 2017 and are on pace this year to finish around 5.4 million again. SUVs first supplanted cars in 2016 and are on track to reach a record 8.3 million this year.

Ford expects only about 10 per cent of its North American vehicles will be cars by 2020.

Merkle said he expects the sales trend to continue as long as baby boomers continue to prefer small SUVs over cars and as millennials move to the suburbs to start families.

“Those are the two biggest demographics shifting vehicle segment sales, and they both continue to prefer the larger cars as they

age,” Merkle said.

With President Donald Trump’s auto tariffs looming, General Motors, Nissan and Fiat Chrysler are among those taking advantage of top-selling imports while they can.

Deliveries have jumped 11 per cent for GM’s Chevrolet Silverado and 10 per cent for Nissan’s Rogue this year through June, while Fiat Chrysler has more than tripled Jeep Compass sales.

All of them are sourced in part or entirely from plants in Mexico, Canada, Japan or the U.K.