May Surprise: U.S. Car Sales Up 19%

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

With all precincts counted, May turned out much better than thought.

Detroit 3 post China-type double digit growth rates. Toyota lags. BMW, Porsche, Suzuki the only losers.

Industry up 19 percent for the month, up 17 percent up for the first five months.

Complete table for all automakers after the jump.


U.S. Car and Light-Truck Sales, May


Data as per Automotive News [sub]

AutomakerMay 2010May 2009Pct. chng.5 month


20105 month


2009Pct. chng.BMW Group22,11823,020-4%98,38493,7345%Chrysler Group LLC104,81979,01033%434,731402,9008%Daimler AG19,88216,31722%90,79777,45417%Ford Motor Co.196,671161,19722%805,662618,36930%General Motors223,410190,88117%882,885772,73314%Honda (American)117,17398,34419%487,282430,35813%Hyundai Group80,47662,99728%342,740287,30219%Isuzu––-%–165-100%Jaguar Land Rover3,6713,3918%16,40715,3117%Maserati15212819%73248152%Mazda22,60516,71835%97,48186,65213%Mitsubishi––-%––-%Nissan83,76467,48924%375,762289,44630%Porsche1,8731,979-5%8,8428,7571%Saab Spyker Automobile174––522––Subaru23,66717,50535%104,35974,68640%Suzuki1,9032,585-26%9,51420,259-53%Toyota162,813152,5837%705,938638,79411%VW32,88227,23021%145,372108,83634%Other (estimate)294306-4%1,4701,530-4%TOTAL1,098,347921,68019%4,608,8803,927,76717%
Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

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  • Psarhjinian Psarhjinian on Jun 02, 2010

    Seeing "Saab Spyker Automobiles" is just weird. Weirder is seeing no Saab sales from last year; I'm assuming that's because of the ownership change?

  • Carlson Fan Carlson Fan on Jun 02, 2010

    "Now if GM could start leasing again they could gain back a good percentage of sales (roughly 40% of GM purchases were leases before the meltdown in the US)." Leasing was the only way most people could manage to put those expensive SUV's/Trucks in their garage. God forbid we drive something we can actually afford to buy.

  • SV SV on Jun 03, 2010

    Some interesting tidbits from scanning the corporate press releases: Ford Fusion (22,381) and Malibu (21,722) are getting surprisingly close to Camry (29,295) numbers. The gap is still there, but the Fusion was up 13% and the Malibu a whopping 54% (fleet sales?) while the Camry was down 6.5%. If that trend continues, we could see Chevy and Ford going at it for the title of best-selling car in a couple years, which honestly is something I'd like to see. Mustang (10,225) outsold Camaro (8,931) for what I believe is the first time. I guess the 2011 Mustang is out now, nice to see the upgrades are having the desired effect on demand. As for Chrysler's sales, they must be really loading up on fleets and rebates because I don't see how their numbers are up so much without any new product.

    • Windswords Windswords on Jun 03, 2010

      Last year at this time the factories were closed due C11. People did not buy because they were unsure about the company's future (remember Chrysler was the FIRST to go thru C11, not GM - which is exactly how the administration wanted it, Chrysler would be smaller and easier to guide thru C11 (a "practice run"), and when it came out intact it would not be so alarming when GM would follow). So we have gone from dismal sales this month a year ago to more normal(ish) sales this month.

  • Jaje Jaje on Jun 03, 2010

    Is there a way to reliably add a new column showing fleet % sales? I see big spikes in sales and MFGRs say they are doing well and the grass is green...when their sales drop it's b/c they are selling less to fleets. They like to claim retail sales success on certain models (like Ford does) but we don't get all the facts in a succinct fashion.

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