Car sales cool off as U.S. freezes
Winter weather leaves a mark in January.
Severe winter weather, including the so-called bomb cyclone that slammed the East Coast, slammed U.S. new-car sales in January.
But U.S. automakers managed to hold the line as the year got off to a middling start.
General Motors sales rose
1.3% for the month. Ford Motor sales fell 6.6%, and Fiat Chrysler tumbled 12.8%.
Japanese automakers offset some of those declines. Toyota sales surged 16.6%, and Nissan was up 10%. Honda was off slightly, down 1.7%.
Overall, industry sales rose
1% compared to a year earlier, according to Autodata Corp.
Sales of new vehicles have cooled off as Americans are buying more lightly-used vehicles that are coming off of three-year leases. And others are keeping their current vehicles longer since quality and durability have improved considerably.
Not all is lost. January’s selling rate, if continued throughout the year, would still be highly profitable for most companies. And sales remain near
2016’s full-year record. Also, automakers are selling highly profitable SUVs and pickups in droves.
Sales of the industry’s most profitable segment, pickups, continued to rise, fueled by the strong economy.
Here’s how automakers fared in January:
❚ General Motors. The company’s flagship Chevrolet brand posted a 5% increase, powered by a 14.5% rise in sales of the Silverado full-size pickup to 40,716 units. The Colorado midsize pickup also recorded a rise of 24.9% to 8,011.
But Cadillac’s slump continued, as the luxury brand fell 3.9%. The GMC brand was down 11.4%, but Buick rose 4%.
❚ Ford. Ford sold 161,143 vehicles for the month. The company’s namesake brand was down 5.6% to 154,733 units, while the luxury Lincoln brand plunged 27% to 6,410.
Ford U.S. sales and marketing chief Mark LaNeve said delays in delivery of vehicles with Ecosport engines to dealers had an effect on sales for the month.
More than four in five vehicles the company sold in January were pickups, vans, crossovers or SUVs. Passenger-car sales plummeted 23%.
The only segment that was up was pickups and vans, which rose 2.2%.
The company’s F-series lineup, the most popular model in the U.S., rose 1.6% to 58,937, posting its best January in 14 years.
❚ Fiat Chrysler. The company has been intentionally reducing sales to rental car companies, partially explaining the decline. Those types of sales are less profitable than retail sales.
The Jeep brand eked out a
2.2% increase. The Chrysler, Dodge, Ram and Fiat brands declined 20.9%, 31.2%, 15.8% and 43.2%, respectively.
❚ Toyota. The company’s namesake brand was up 17% to
149,142, while the luxury Lexus lineup rose 15%.
Toyota posted a surprise 5% increase in passenger-car sales. But sales of Toyota pick- ups soared 27.3%, as the Tundra full-size pickup and the Tacoma midsize pickup ballooned.
❚ Honda. The Japanese automaker sold 104,542 to U.S. customers in January. That included a 1.6% decline in Honda brand sales and a 3.2% decline in luxury Acura sales.
The company said that “inventory constraints” led to a 1.8% decline in truck sales.
But sales of passenger cars continued to buck the industry’s downward trend, increasing 9.3%. ❚ Volkswagen Group. The Volkswagen brand, which reports results separately from VW’s Audi and Porsche brands, was up 5.2% to 24,744 units. The Audi brand was up 9.9% to 14,511.