Best Selling Cars Around The Globe: California Dreaming of Japan

by Matt Gasnier

Published: August 19th, 2013

best selling cars around the globe california dreaming of japan

After travelling the world, we come back to California today to check out which cars are the most popular here.

And I’ve got one word for you: Japan, Japan, Japan.

California too close for comfort? That’s ok because you can check out new car sales data for 176 additional countries and territories on my blog. Go on, you know you want to!

For the detail of what sells and what doesn’t in California, jump in below!

The Toyota Prius is one of 3 Toyotas in the Californian Top 5 over the period.

New car sales in California continue to outpace the US market overall, up a fantastic 12% year-on-year (vs. +8% overall in the US) both over the 2nd Quarter of 2013 at 447,054 registrations and year-to-date at 850,712 units. Like in the country as a whole, Californian sales are pulled up by light pick-up trucks (+17%) while domestic brands (+21%) fare better than the Japanese (+10%).

The Passenger Car market share in California is 63% vs. 51% overall in the US, domestic brands account for just 29% of sales vs. 46% in the US and Japanese brands are at 48% in California vs. 37% overall. The Toyota Prius remains the best-selling ‘model’ in the state at 18,326 sales and 4.1% over Q2 and 33,987 year-to-date, however this figure include both Prius C and Prius V which skews the results.

#BestSellingCarsAroundTheGlobe #California #MattGasnier #USA

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3 of 11 comments

Jimbob457 on Aug 20, 2013

Toyota's Prius hybrids are riding for a fall. imo. I noticed in their very sweet little commercial that regular gas was selling for $4.19 USD per US gallon with the subtle implication that gas prices were rising. Nice fantasy for some, but in the real California world of right now, regular gas averages $3.81 USD per US gallon, and that price has fallen almost 30 cents per gallon over the past year. The average price for regular gas in the USA is $3.57 USD per US gallon. In Texas, recently I have been paying $3.30 USD per US gallon. The main cause, imo, is greatly increased US crude oil and NGL production from an entirely new mining technique colloquially referred to as "fracking". A sluggish European economy, and slower motor vehicle growth in China, India and elsewhere are probably factors as well. Crude oil production in Texas has exploded from 1 mmbbl/d to 2.5 mmbbl/d over the past 18-24 months. Bakken shale production in North Dakota has gone from almost zero to 0.8 mmbbl/d over the same period. Both are still headed straight north with no end in sight unless crude oil prices fall considerably. To put this in perspective, global crude oil production is around 65 mmbbl/d. The long-term potential from "fracking" is enormous. Oil and gas prices are headed nowhere but down for as far as the eye can see. Just how far down remains to be seen. In general, this ought to be very good for the motor vehicle industry, but bets on the heavily subsidized hybrids and EV's don't look so hot.

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- Adamsd on Aug 21, 2013
  
  So if you are in Texas, you wouldn't have noticed the fact that it was over $4 in California until just about 2 weeks ago; before that it has been over $4 for most of the summer so far. It just very recently in the last two weeks dropped more significantly.
  
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Lorenzo on Aug 20, 2013

My last trip to El Centro, two of every three vehicles was a Ford F150 or a Ram, with a few Silverados rounding out that two out of three. They weren't all 2013/2014 models though, that's the downside of observing what's on the street. Matt's using new car registrations statewide, the best way to spot the latest trends in new car sales. California IS a big state.

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