Winning! These Are America's Best-Selling Cars, Trucks, SUVs, Vans, and Luxury Autos In 2016's First Half
We’ve reached the halfway marker. After new vehicle sales soared to record levels in calendar year 2015, the volume produced by automakers competing for market share in the United States continued to expand through the first six months of 2016.
Between January and June, the 30 most popular new vehicle nameplates in the United States generated half of all auto sales, leaving more than 250 other vehicles to fight over half the market. Many of those popular vehicles own a far greater chunk of the market than entire manufacturers. The top-selling Ford F-Series line of pickup trucks, for instance, outsells every auto brand aside from Toyota, Chevrolet, Nissan, Honda, Jeep, and Ford itself. The 30th-ranked vehicle, Subaru’s Outback, outsells whole mid-tier premium brands such as Cadillac, Infiniti, Lincoln, and Jaguar-Land Rover.
In other words, popular vehicles are very popular indeed.
These are the most popular of the popular, the podium finishers in five broad categories through the first half of 2016.
Chevrolet Silverado | -1% | 273,652
Ram P/U | +9% | 231,405
CARS
Honda Civic | +20% | 189,840
Toyota Corolla | -4% | 182,193
SUVs & CROSSOVERS
Honda CR-V | -2% | 159,075
Ford Escape | +6% | 155,378
VANS
Dodge Grand Caravan | +94% | 71,523
Toyota Sienna | -4% | 68,225
PREMIUM BRAND AUTOS
Mercedes-Benz C-Class | -14% | 37,305
BMW 3 Series | -23% | 32,976
[Images courtesy of automakers; graph by Timothy Cain]
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 and on Facebook.
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- Kjhkjlhkjhkljh kljhjkhjklhkjh A prelude is a bad idea. There is already Acura with all the weird sport trims. This will not make back it's R&D money.
- Analoggrotto I don't see a red car here, how blazing stupid are you people?
- Redapple2 Love the wheels
- Redapple2 Good luck to them. They used to make great cars. 510. 240Z, Sentra SE-R. Maxima. Frontier.
- Joe65688619 Under Ghosn they went through the same short-term bottom-line thinking that GM did in the 80s/90s, and they have not recovered say, to their heyday in the 50s and 60s in terms of market share and innovation. Poor design decisions (a CVT in their front-wheel drive "4-Door Sports Car", model overlap in a poorly performing segment (they never needed the Altima AND the Maxima...what they needed was one vehicle with different drivetrain, including hybrid, to compete with the Accord/Camry, and decontenting their vehicles: My 2012 QX56 (I know, not a Nissan, but the same holds for the Armada) had power rear windows in the cargo area that could vent, a glass hatch on the back door that could be opened separate from the whole liftgate (in such a tall vehicle, kinda essential if you have it in a garage and want to load the trunk without having to open the garage door to make room for the lift gate), a nice driver's side folding armrest, and a few other quality-of-life details absent from my 2018 QX80. In a competitive market this attention to detai is can be the differentiator that sell cars. Now they are caught in the middle of the market, competing more with Hyundai and Kia and selling discounted vehicles near the same price points, but losing money on them. They invested also invested a lot in niche platforms. The Leaf was one of the first full EVs, but never really evolved. They misjudged the market - luxury EVs are selling, small budget models not so much. Variable compression engines offering little in terms of real-world power or tech, let a lot of complexity that is leading to higher failure rates. Aside from the Z and GT-R (low volume models), not much forced induction (whether your a fan or not, look at what Honda did with the CR-V and Acura RDX - same chassis, slap a turbo on it, make it nicer inside, and now you can sell it as a semi-premium brand with higher markup). That said, I do believe they retain the technical and engineering capability to do far better. About time management realized they need to make smarter investments and understand their markets better.
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So, between Ford's EcoBoost experience and its aluminum experience, now we know how the pickup market works. Pickup buyers howl and moan about any post-1960s technology before introduction, predicting it means The End for the manufacturer that introduces it. Then they avoid the first year of production while continuing to howl and moan. But when there are a few hundred thousand of the new-technology trucks in service, benefiting from the new technology, it starts seeming "normal" and the buyers come back.
Why bicycles are not included in article? It is now the preferred type of transportation in our area. You guys talk only about trucks. Whats so hot about them? I cannot get it.