March 2014 Sales Surge, With SAAR Pegged at 16.4 Million Units
March saw a 6 percent bump in auto sales, with a 16.4 million unit SAAR calming fears about a stagnant market. Light truck sales were up 11 percent, with passenger cars up by just one percent.
Among the top auto makers were Chrysler, with a 13 percent gain (mostly due to trucks, as the car-heavy Chrysler brand fell 23 percent), with Daimler up 11 percent and Volvo up 10 percent. Subaru and Mitsubishi also posted strong gains of 21 percent and 70 percent respectively. Honda was the lone auto maker to take a hit, down 2 percent, despite the Acura brand being up 11 percent.
Among brands, luxury labels like Lincoln, Lexus, BMW and Mercedes-Benz all posted double digit gains. Buick was up 13 percent, while Jeep was up a whopping 47 percent. Mini posted a 40 percent decline (due to a new model changeover), while Scion was down 8 percent, with sales of the FR-S declining by 26 percent.
For a full table, see Automotive News.
More by Derek Kreindler
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The story with these numbers is owning a car is just not cool anymore. Toyota and Honda understands this. Detroit does not. Example. Fusion. Luxury car looks. But, even with massive incentives, far more than Camry and Accord, Fusion only takes 4th place in sales. Ford was trying to buy themselves a first place show in the segment so they could paint the airwaves with the result. In fact, when Ford released their sales results to wall street, they were bragging about record Fusion sales. I think they thought they had bought themselves 1st place in the segment. I can only imagine the long faces in Dearborn when they nabbed 4th. In the Boston papers, you can get a new Fusion base model for 18K ... far undercutting base Camry and Accord. Still, no win for Ford. Bottom line, cars are a commodity and nothing more. People flock to the Camry and Accord over the Fusion because the rear seat is much more useable, and because they are more reliable. Those two factors are much more important than Fusion looks. Detroit is still living in the 50s ... a time when the shape of the sheet metal was status and more important than any other factor. No more.
After all these new, high profile Cadillac launches, the SRX moves over one third of Cadillac's volume. Maybe Cadillac should add another CUV.
Happy to say I generated a +1 on the Jeep line, picked up a Wrangler Unlimited on the last day of the month. Loving it so far.
I haven`t seen any explanation for Honda's drop in a growing market. Any ideas?