#PickupTrucks

Pickup trucks soared to their highest total of 2014 during the month of December, climbing 18% to 237,635, equal to 14% of the overall auto industry’s new vehicle volume. Truck sales jumped 6% to 2.3 million in 2014.

• GM twins outsold F-Series in December

• F-Series outsold GM twins in 2014

• Ram makes biggest market share gains

Full-size trucks generated 88.9% of all pickup sales activity in December, down from 90.1% a year ago as General Motors contributed more than 5500 Colorado/Canyon sales to the mix, strengthening the small corner of the market held by small/midsize pickups.

Led by big GM improvements, the full-size sector grew by 30,522 units last month. The Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra combined to outsell the Ford F-Series, as it transition to a 2015 F-150, by 6918 units. Joining GM’s surge, Ram P/U sales shot up 32% to 44,222 units, making December the third month in 2014 that Ram sales shot beyond the 40K mark.

Nissan USA announced on December 16, 2014, that the next Titan, the second Titan, the first all-new Titan since 2003, will be introduced at 2015’s NAIAS in Detroit on January 12, 2015.

Hardly altered since the production truck arrived for the 2004 model year, the Titan is now somewhat embarrassing. Yet while the truck never had the potential to tackle full-size pickup trucks from Ford, General Motors, and Ram – Toyota can’t either – in the same way Nissan’s Altima can outsell their midsize sedans and Nissan’s Versa their subcompacts, initial U.S. volume was respectable.

Full-size pickup trucks generated 13.1% of all U.S. new vehicle sales in November 2014, up from 12.5% in November 2013 thanks to a 10% volume gain.

That 10% segment-wide increase occurred despite a 10% decrease from America’s best-selling vehicle line, the Ford F-Series. New F-150s are arriving at dealers now, but overall F-Series volume will be volatile for a few months as the aluminum F-150 takes over from the outgoing model.

The F-Series’ share of the full-size category slid from 42.2% in November 2013 to 34.6% last month.

U.S. sales of small/midsize/non-full-size pickup trucks jumped 19.4% in October 2014, a gain of 3672 units compared with October 2013.

Sales of the Toyota Tacoma were up 5%. Nissan Frontier sales shot up 25%. Not surprisingly, the slowly disappearing Honda Ridgeline was down 35%. GM’s new pickup trucks contributed an extra 2158 sales. Even without those additional Colorados and Canyons, the category would have risen 8% despite the Ridgeline’s sharp but relatively inconsequential decline.

Pickup truck sales increased 10% in the United States in October, an 18,590-unit jump in a market which grew 6%. Besides drawing attention to the, “The people buy trucks because the fuel is cheap,” argument, which is not at all completely false nor entirely true, the 10% increase drew our attention to the massive figures generated by the biggest nameplates and their expansive product ranges.

We’ve covered truck sales already this month, so rather than taking another deep dive into October’s specifics, consider instead the percentage of America’s growing auto market that belonged to the pickup truck category last month: 15.8%.

That’s not a small number. Indeed, it’s a significantly larger number than the one achieved by the category through the first ten months of 2014: 13.8%. For perspective, however, think back one decade. In 2004, 19% of the new vehicles sold in America were pickup trucks.

Overall pickup truck sales jumped 10.1% in the United States in October 2014 as six full-size nameplates collectively grew 9.5%. Growth in the overall truck world was aided by 2158 Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon sales (up from 34 a year ago), a 1326-unit improvement from the Nissan Frontier, and the Toyota Tacoma’s 5% increase.

Ford is said to be mulling a smaller pickup to slot beneath the F-150, plucked from their existing global product portfolio. One thing we are sure of is that it won’t be the new “global Ranger” sold in world markets.

The Ford Motor Company’s namesake Ford brand suffered a September 2014 sales decline of 3% as the industry reported gains in excess of 9%.

First thought?

The F-Series, not just Ford’s best-selling model line but the country’s most popular vehicle range, was revealed in new, high-tech form months ago, and we’re rapidly approaching the replacement phase. Some members of the media have even been driving the new truck.

In other words, with factories being overhauled and buyers interested in waiting for a more efficient F-150 with a better power-to-weight ratio, sales of the current model would naturally decline, bringing down a brand that relied on the F-Series for more than three out of every ten sales last year.

Indeed, F-Series sales did decline in September. But only slightly.

As is the norm, Ford’s F-Series topped September 2014’s sales charts, but if a true winner was to be crowned after a quick glance at the results tables, Chevrolet’s Silverado must surely take the cake.

Not only did Silverado sales rise more rapidly than any other pickup truck – faster than the Ram’s 30% jump; better than the Nissan Frontier’s 47% rise – but the Silverado also powered General Motors to a second consecutive F-Series-besting month.

Isuzu and GM agreed to develop a next-generation mid-size pickup for world markets, though Canada and the United States will get their own distinct model under the terms of the agreement.

Toyota’s lone Mexican assembly plant will boost output by as much as 40 percent to increase production of the Tacoma mid-size pickup truck starting in April, 2015.

GM’s new mid-size pickup trucks aren’t even on sale yet, but the auto maker is already preparing to add a third shift at its Wentzville, Missouri assembly plant, which will result in 750 additional jobs.

In an auto market which somewhat unexpectedly grew 5.5% in August 2014, sales of full-size pickup trucks jumped 8.8%. This increase occurred in spite of 3006 fewer sales from the segment’s best-selling vehicle line, Ford’s F-Series, which is fading slightly as ordering for the new 2015 F-150 begins.

Ram’s truck range was up 33% to more than 40,000 units, the second time in six months that the Chrysler Group/FCA has sold more than 40,000 Ram pickups in a single month. Not since 2003 have this many Ram trucks been sold during the month of August. Year-over-year, Ram’s share of the full-size truck segment grew by more than four percentage points.

The car-based small pickup market was launched in Brazil by Fiat during the 1980s. Taking a 147 as its base, the Italians cut out the back seats, added a bed, beefed up the suspension and called it good. The market deemed it so, and soon, there was a whole new segment gracing Brazil’s roads, with Fiat’s Strada dominating the segment. Since that time, nearly every challenger has been vanquished by the Strada’s unquestionable longevity – except for Volkswagen’s Saveiro.

The pricing announcement for GM’s mid-size trucks raised a big question at TTAC – namely, how are they supposed to compete with GM’s full-size trucks when there are such hefty rebates already available?