A fire at Ford’s world headquarters in Dearborn on Monday prevented the No. 2 US automaker from releasing its October results. This means the full monthly recap of light vehicle sales will come later this week.
Based on the data available, however, the industry had another down month in terms of volume. Total sales reported so far show deliveries of about 1.18m cars and light trucks. That tally is down 4.9% from October 2015.
Last month began with two strikes against it. This year October had two fewer selling days compared to October 2015 which was an unusually strong month with sales up 13.6% year on year. October 2015’s growth was the third highest in a record sales year.
Despite the deficit, estimates of the seasonally adjusted annualised rate are running between 17.7m and 18.3m, which would make October 2016 one of the most robust months of the year.
FCA sales fell 10.3%, one of the largest shortfalls of the major automakers, as Jeep sales stumbled for a second month. Ram was the sole FCA brand to come in ahead of its year ago figures. Based on the numbers released at this point, Jeep remains the top utility brand in the US.
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By GlobalData
Analysts were far too pessimistic about General Motors, forecasting a 7.1% deficit. GM’s actual drop was a comparatively mild 1.7% thanks to good results from Buick and only a small softening at Chevrolet.
Toyota reported an 8.7% drop with both brands missing their 2015 marks. Honda, Nissan and Mazda also fell.
Mitsubishi and Subaru were the only Japanese automakers to beat their 2015 sales. Subaru reported another sales record for the 59th consecutive month.
Hyundai had its best October ever as sales rose 4.2%, enough to clear Kia’s 2.1% drop and give the group a 1.3% improvement.
Jaguar was the hottest marque in the industry with deliveries up 225.8%, driven by the F-Pace and XE. Jaguar had its best October since 2004. The F-Pace captured 38.5% of its total sales and the folks in the home office are probably wondering why they didn’t offer a utility earlier.
Land Rover sales, on the other hand, plunged 23.2%, which is probably the answer to that question.
Audi set another monthly sales record with a 21-unit margin. Bentley sales were up 157.9% as the Bentayga continued to draw the attention of the well-heeled. Porsche joined its stablemate with a new October record courtesy of a triple-digit increase in Macan turnover. Unfortunately, Volkswagen is the volume brand and VW sales fell 18.5%, wiping out all the black ink and leaving VW Group in the red again.
Volvo sales dropped 14.6% but the Chinese-Swedish automaker is still in the black by a healthy margin.
While we don’t yet know what October’s final total will be, a look at sales over the past four years shows that sales hit a plateau in April of this year. Typically, years have had peaks and valleys: in 2015 the average monthly-to-month variance was 9.2%. Since April, the average variance has been 2.5%.
So while prospects for another record year grow dim, the chances for a relatively soft landing look pretty good.
