Shifting Up: Auto Sales Rise in March 2018

Matthew Guy
by Matthew Guy

Spring is springing in most parts of the country and, as if on cue, more customers are beating their way to a dealership’s door. The market is up, in both monthly and year-to-date measures.

Mazda, Toyota, and Volkswagen are all up on their own merits both from a monthly and year-to-date perspective. In fact, compared to the same month last year, just about all the major automakers moved more metal in March.

FCA enjoyed a year-over-year sales jump of over 13 percent last month, largely thanks to the Jeep brand. Year-to-date, the company is about flat, despite declines at Fiat and Ram. The new Wrangler has paid off, leading to the best month ever for that model. In the first three months of 2018, Jeep has moved nearly 40,000 extra units compared to last year, offsetting drops at all other FCA brands (save for Alfa).

The General is also performing well in 2018, up nearly 4 percent — not a small number considering the company’s volume. Buick itself has jumped more than 13 percent, accounting for an extra 6,000 sales. Most of those extra sales came in the month of March. Chevrolet, GMC, and Cadillac all posted gains.

Hyundai dropped a precipitous 11.2 percent last month, year over year, and 11.8 percent year to date. Both the Hyundai and Genesis brands were off, with the corporation bleeding over 20,000 sales since the start of January. All those new crossovers can’t come soon enough, apparently.

Other bright sparks in the first quarter of 2018 include Acura, Mazda, and Mitsubishi. Wait, what?

This may very well be our final monthly sales report using official numbers, as General Motors announced this morning that it will only release performance data on a quarterly basis going forward. We’ll take our numbers fix where we can get it, though, and remain committed in keeping an ear to the ground.

[Image: Ford]

Matthew Guy
Matthew Guy

Matthew buys, sells, fixes, & races cars. As a human index of auto & auction knowledge, he is fond of making money and offering loud opinions.

More by Matthew Guy

Comments
Join the conversation
2 of 23 comments
  • Vehic1 Vehic1 on Apr 04, 2018

    ernest: As long as Hyundai keeps falling, it could slip a place; Subaru's sales increases are nowhere nearly what they were from 2012 - 2015 (the Love ad campaign has largely reached its peak). Without the massive Crosstrek increase, they'd be (-); but perhaps the new Ascent will help.

  • Dal20402 Dal20402 on Apr 04, 2018

    Crossover and truck mania! These sales reports net out to: if you sold CUVs, SUVs, or pickups, your sales increased; if you sold conventional passenger cars, your sales tanked.

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
Next