America's 10 Best-Selling Cars In August 2014
Honda sold more Accords in the United States in August 2014 than at any other point in the model’s rather illustrious history, securing a place as the top-selling passenger car in America last month.
Year-to-date, the Toyota Camry leads the Accord by 35,045 units heading into September. For the Accord to overtake the Camry, the Accord’s margin of victory in each of the remaining four months on the calendar would have to be even stronger than it was in August, the first time since February that the Camry wasn’t America’s top-selling car.
The leader in February, Nissan’s Altima, is America’s fourth-best-selling car so far this year and the fifth-ranked car in August. Altima volume rose 4% last month. Sales of the next-best-selling Ford Fusion jumped 20% in August, rising to 29,452. Ford is on pace to sell more than 310,000 Fusions in 2014, the first year in which Fusion sales will have climbed above 300,000 units.
RankAutoAugust2014August2013% Change8 mos.20148 mos. 2013%Change Accord51,07538,55932.5%271,426256,9265.6%#2 Toyota Camry44,04344,713-1.5%306,471287,1196.7%#3 Honda Civic34,03239,458-13.8%231,167230,5780.3%#4 Toyota Corolla/Matrix33,08826,86123.2%238,275210,29613.3%#5 Nissan Altima32,15330,9763.8%235,260228,2973.0% Fusion29,45224,65319.5%218,892206,3216.1%#7 Chevrolet Cruze23,43523,909-2.0%189,699183,0453.6%#8 Hyundai Elantra22,84524,700-7.5%157,555174,902-9.9%#9 Ford Focus22,07920,3728.4%160,759171,921-6.5%#10 Hyundai Sonata21,09216,91724.7%150,016138,8308.1%America’s fifth-best-selling midsize car in August was the Hyundai Sonata, the tenth-ranked car overall. Sonata volume jumped 25% year-over-year and its year-to-date 8% improvement outpaces the gains made by all its better-selling rivals.
There is a faster-rising small car, however. Toyota Corolla sales shot up 23% in August and have risen 13% so far this year. The Corolla leads the Honda Civic by 7108 sales heading into September, a slight decrease from the lead it held a month ago after the Civic finished August with a 944-unit gap. Civic sales plunged 14% compared with August 2013. But it’s worth remembering that the Civic’s results at this time a year ago were an anomaly: August 2013 Civic volume was 22% better than any other Civic sales month in 2013.
With the Civic’s decrease and the Honda CR-V’s slight 2% drop, plus declines reported by the CR-Z, Fit, Insight, Crosstour, Pilot, and Ridgeline, the Accord carried Honda in August. Honda brand sales rose 1.5% year-over-year; 5.2% on a daily selling rate basis. The Accord generated 33.7% of Honda sales, up from 25.8% a year ago and 28.4% in July of this year. The Toyota brand relied on the Camry for a comparatively small 21.3% of its August volume.
Timothy Cain is the founder of GoodCarBadCar.net, which obsesses over the free and frequent publication of U.S. and Canadian auto sales figures.
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I have never been a fan of Honda exterior design...Their cars to me at best are boring a worst ugly..That been said the Accord is a very good car and the only other that I would buy over it would be the Mazda 6. Yes I would be giving up some (not a lot) of space and some NVH. However it seems to me that few folks who actually bought the prior Accords (and I know alot of them) complained of the very high levels of noise they made for decades. To me it just goes to show that on sites like this (or Tech,Cooking, or any specialist site) the only folks that care about that stuff is us. The average Joe wont notice too much if car A meets most of his or her needs. I have driven most of the class just like alot of you guys have and in reality not too many bad choices out there right now.
The Accord would top my list right now, and Toyota has not done anything to the next Camry that would make me change my mind.