July light vehicle sales were as hot as the Texas sun. Automakers sold better than 1.3m cars and trucks last month, 13.9% ahead of July 2012. That yielded a seasonally adjusted annualised sales rate (SAAR) of 15.67m, the second-highest reading since December 2007.
Volkswagen was the only major brand to miss its numbers from last year, a slump that VW management has promised to address. Most other manufacturers reported double-digit gains.
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Thanks to sales surges at Honda and Toyota, there were some changes in the pecking order. Toyota edged by Ford to take the No 2 spot and Honda bumped Chrysler down to fifth among the major players. Neither of the US automakers is looking over its shoulder quite yet as both have substantial leads in year to date (YTD) sales.
Pickups continue to be a driving force in US sales. Deliveries of full-size, US-badged pickups were up 32.9% in July, nearly 2.4 times the growth of the overall market. With the introduction of the refreshed 2014 models, sales of the Chevrolet Silverado were up 45.2% and GMC Sierra deliveries rose 49.3%. Ram pickup sales rose 31.4% in July.
General Motors reported the largest improvement of the Detroit automakers and also announced its retail sales are growing while the number of vehicles going to less profitable fleet sales is declining.
The Chevrolet Cruze repeated its June performance as the best selling American badged passenger car and Cadillac’s new models are finding an eager audience. So far this year, Cadillac sales are up 30.3%.
Chrysler racked up its 40th consecutive month of year over year sales growth as it broke the million sales mark. The new Fiat 500L made its debut, generating enough sales to overcome a shortfall in sales of the little 500.
Solid results from the Grand Cherokee, Compass and Patriot overcame dwindling sales of the discontinued Jeep Liberty/Cherokee to keep Jeep in the black for the month. Despite yet another delay, Chrysler still says it will be delivering the redesigned Cherokee to dealers in September.
Ford’s big news was an 88.9% increase in sales of the Fiesta which has languished in the shadow of the larger Focus since its introduction. Other than that, it was the F-series, which accounted for 32.5% of total Ford brand sales.
Record light truck sales and the best Civic results in 20 years gave Honda a 20.9% boost in July. In fact, July was very good for all of the Japanese automakers. Mazda reported a 29.4% improvement and even Mitsubishi finished the month with a double digit increase. As a group, the Japanese companies claimed an extra 1.4 points of market share mostly at the expense of the Koreans. While Hyundai and Kia both reported sales records in July, their YTD totals are 0.3% short of their 2012 results.
In addition to Hyundai and Kia, Audi, Porsche and Subaru posted new July records and Mercedes-Benz said sales for the first seven months of the year are at an all time high.
There are still political and economic uncertainties that could derail the recovery but SAAR and sales trends continue to indicate 2013 will be the year the auto industry breaks the 15m sales barrier, a major milestone on the road to a full recovery.
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