Sales: Subcompact Cars, February 2011
On most weekends, TTAC publishes the fun, frivolous kinds of stories that don’t make it into our regular weekly coverage, exposing our readers to everything from the hilarity of the LeMons series, to obscure automotive histories to pictorials of such undercovered vehicles as vintage Snow Cats. This weekend, however, TTAC is feeding you your vegetables: sales graphs of the major automotive segments from February. We start our coverage with the subcompact segment, where the Nissan Versa continues to kill the competition, proving yet again that what Americans are looking for in a small car is a large car. Kia’s Soul held off the Fiesta’s attack on the number two spot, while Toyota’s Yaris slipped to Kia Rio volume levels and the Scion xD slipped to the bottom of the chart. Meanwhile, few of the long-established names in this segment are beating their year-ago numbers, but look for that to change if gas prices keep going up.
More by Edward Niedermeyer
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Joe Isuzu... where art thou?
Well then the Corolla is out-dated in another segment. Lets see how the new Elantra & Focus do in the coming months. Strange of Mazda really to dish the 2 a 4-sp. Back in the early 90's when most else was 3-sp Mazda were careful to bring in the 323 tugboat with a class leading 4-sp. Ford says 80% of Fiesta sales are automatic. Why would you opt for Mazda 2's outdated when you could go Fiesta dual clutch 6? Ford understands but not the Mazda division. Even Fiat knows better.
Sad to see the 2 doing so poorly. I agree...given it's image as the more "sporting" division, the 2 is really saddled with an unsporting disadvantage. Shame, really...in appearance, I prefer the 2.
I've seen a total of two Mazda 2s in Southern Maine. A green one sitting at the Mazda/VW/Audi/Porsche dealer (how's that for a combination?) and I actually saw a black one driving around the other day. It was being driven by a gray haired guy, probably in his 50s. I think I heard that Mazda is supposed to put a better engine in it eventually. Seems like they should have done that to begin with, along with a decent transmission. Can the Versa still be had for $10000 for a strippo model? If so I would imagine that isn't hurting its sales. And it's sad that The $hitveo is selling better than the Yaris.