Chart Of The Day: May 2015 Was The Best Month Yet For GM's Subcompact Crossovers
During a month in which American Honda reported the brand’s first 6,381 HR-V sales, a month in which Subaru and Mitsubishi reported record XV Crosstrek and Outlander Sport sales, a month in which Jeep sold another 4,416 Renegades, GM’s smallest crossovers combined for their highest sales total thus far, as well.
11,107 Buick Encores and Chevrolet Traxes (Traxi? Trai?) were sold in the United States in May 2015.
This required the biggest of six months so far for the Chevrolet Trax. Encore volume increased 28%, year-over-year, and crested the 5,000-unit mark for the third consecutive month and just the third time since the little Buick arrived at the beginning of 2013.
General Motors sold 102,547 SUV and crossovers in the U.S. in May 2015. The Encore and Trax accounted for 11% of those sales. In other words, significantly more than the just-launched Honda HR-V; not nearly as many as the Chevrolet Equinox. With 29,456 May sales, the Equinox ranks second among SUVs and crossovers overall.
Timothy Cain is the founder of GoodCarBadCar.net, which obsesses over the free and frequent publication of U.S. and Canadian auto sales figures. Follow on Twitter @goodcarbadcar.
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I live near the beach in LA and have seen 5 new, non-rental Traxes with dealer paper plates on them over the past 2 weeks. I have also seen 2 HR-Vs in that time, the latest just yesterday. So these things are selling. I've seen ads on TV for the HR-V, but none for the Trax. I've also seen many, many (non-rental) Encores. Even one driven by a young millennial girl! "I'm outside...in the Buick" The Encore is a bit silly-looking, but so are all of these tiny CUVs. I was not impressed with the HR-V in person; looked better in photos. Just as ugly as the Encore IMO.
I think Honda is really happy that GM pioneered this market in the US, and can't wait to get an Acura version of the HR-V to market ASAP to take over all these Encore sales.
Even the run-of-the-mill Trax(es) with the plasticky-fantastiky trim are going for $26k - man, GM is raking it in (for now).
How many Trax were rental sales? We had a Trax rental a while back, what an unhappy car. Engine and transmission were not a good match. Do they have vinyl interiors? Or was the leather really that bad? This is way GM makes crappy cars, they have no problem selling them.