Honda Dives 39.2 Percent, Toyota Down 38.4 Percent

Gosh that sounds bad, doesn’t it? Honda’s silver lining is (sorta) legit though, since the big H set an all-time sales record in May 2008. Toyota has no such excuse. Besides, falling sales are salling sales. So let’s put the lipstick away, and take a good, hard look at this pig.

Honda’s stats reflect the steep declines in car sales (-47.6) and shallower drop in truck sales (21.2) we’re seeing elsewhere. Acura (-34) also did better month-on-month than the Honda brand (-39.7). Of course this means that Accord and Civic were way down, clocking-in at -46.3 percent and -59.6 percent respectively. Honda’s new Insight hybrid had a relatively strong showing, however, with 2,780 moving off the lot last month. The Honda Odyssey (-2.9 percent) and Pilot (-8.9 percent) were relatively steady, with the Element (-46.7) and Ridgeline (-56.6) leading truck declines. Acura’s best performers were TL (-18.4) and RDX (-23.8).

Toyota’s core brand also did worse than its Lexus luxury brand, which fell 33.9 percent to Toyota’s 39 percent drop. There wasn’t as much discrepancy between cars and trucks for ToMoCo though, with cars falling 37.6 percent and trucks down 38.3 percent. Meanwhile, all Scion models have seen sales drop by at least 50 percent since last year. The box-fresh Venza sold 4,745 units in one of its first sales months, while the Lexus GS sold just 516.

Otherwise, Toyota and Lexus passenger vehicles saw sales fall between 32.2 percent (Corolla) and 62 percent (Lexus SC). On the “truck” front, the RAV-4 and Lexus RX stayed strong-ish with “only” 14.4 percent and 9.7 percent drops in sales respectively. The 4Runner is falling off badly with a 60 percent drop. Land Cruiser, FJ Cruiser and Tundra aren’t far behind, with sales of all three down by over 50 percent.