Auto Sales Slowdown? Honda CR-V Sets All-Time Monthly Sales Record In July 2016

Through the first seven months of 2016, the Honda CR-V is not the best-selling SUV/crossover in America.

This comes as some surprise for a vehicle that led the utility vehicle sector in eight of the last nine years, including each of the last four.

With a 16-percent year-over-year jump to 197,771 units through July, the Toyota RAV4 is the leader of the pack so far this year.

Yet after the RAV4 led the monthly SUV/crossover rundown in each of the first five months of 2016, the Honda CR-V narrowed the gap in June, outselling the RAV4 by 2,250 units to mark a turnaround at the end of the first-half.

Then in July, Honda reported the highest monthly CR-V sales total in the nameplate’s two-decade run.

Chomping away at the RAV4’s year-to-date sales lead — now a 2,679-unit margin with five months remaining — the CR-V was also American Honda’s best-selling model in July.

Despite a 1-percent drop in Honda car sales, a 13-percent decline in Odyssey minivan sales, and an overall industry trend that slowed year-over-year growth to less than 1 percent, Honda reported 4,232 more CR-V sales in July 2016 than in July 2015.

At this point last year, Honda was reporting best-ever July results. One year later, not only was that July record smashed, but American Honda topped the all-time CR-V sales record (set last August) by 4 percent.

The 36,017-unit CR-V sales total reported by American Honda in July 2016 corrected first-half sales figures, which were down by more than 2 percent. Year-to-date, CR-V volume is now level with the figures achieved during the first seven months of 2015. If Honda simply maintains that level of output through the remainder of 2016, the year will end with 346,000 U.S. CR-V sales. In that case, assuming no CR-V sales growth for the rest of 2016, Toyota would need a modest 2-percent year-over-year RAV4 increase for its compact crossover to end 2016 as America’s favourite SUV/crossover for the first time in the model’s history.

We can safely assume that even the auto industry’s slowdown won’t result in RAV4 growth of just 2 percent, nor will we assume that, after a two-month span in which CR-V sales jumped 9 percent, American Honda can’t continue to expand the CR-V’s appeal.

For Honda, the news in other parts of the lineup is largely positive as of late.

The launch of the tenth-generation Civic last winter has resulted in an 18-percent leap forward in U.S. Civic volume, at a time when passenger car volume has tumbled 8 percent across the industry. Despite a 7-percent drop in July, Honda Accord sales are up 6 percent this year. Sales of the discontinued Honda Crosstour and CR-Z are in the toilet. The Honda Fit’s 18-percent drop, valued at 7,149 lost sales, is more than cancelled out by a 23,787-unit uptick in sales of the Fit-based Honda HR-V. In the final year of the current-generation Odyssey’s life-cycle, Honda’s minivan on track to sell more than 120,000 copies for a fifth consecutive year. Short supply constrained Pilot sales through much of early 2016, a 13-percent rise over the last two months suggests the pain may now be mitigated. The launch of the Ridgeline took full effect in July.

The Honda division’s senior vice president and general manager, Jeff Conrad, says, “The strong cadence of new Honda products we continue to bring to market has created extraordinary retail demand that is unprecedented in our history.” Indeed, Honda is now reporting record brand-wide sales on a routine basis.

All is not sunshine and roses, however. Awaiting improved supply of the MDX — revamped for 2017 — and RDX while facing a 13-percent decline in its car division, volume at Honda’s upmarket Acura brand is down 9 percent this year to only 92,668 units through July.

This places Acura on a track for a four-year U.S. sales low of roughly 161,000 sales in 2016, a 23-percent drop since 2005.

[Images: American Honda, Toyota USA, Acura]

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.