Car sales volume fell 19 percent in August, accounting for 28.8 percent of the U.S. market’s overall sales volume – a record low for any month on a historical basis. Meanwhile, light-truck sales increased 10 percent.
Each of the three top-selling sedan in the United States – the Toyota Camry, Honda Civic, and Honda Accord – saw double-digit sales decreases. Sedan sales at Ford Motor Company fell 21 percent. The automaker is discontinuing all of its traditional sedan models to focus on pickups and utilities.
| August 2013 | 50.10% |
| August 2014 | 47.60% |
| August 2015 | 43.00% |
| August 2016 | 38.50% |
| August 2017 | 35.50% |
| August 2018 | 28.80% |
Industry watchers initially predicted that the lowest point car sales would fall would fall to about 30 percent of the market. However, some analysts now believe that the 30 percent mark is not the absolute minimum.
“It’s tough to forecast where share will finally level out, as consumers have decidedly killed the car,” Zo Rahim, a Cox Automotive research manager, said in a statement. “Our initial idea of the floor being somewhere in the low-30 percent neighborhood appears to be too high in a market that loves its trucks and SUVs.”
Despite healthy growth in U.S. employment and stable confuser confidence, uncertainty is still in the air over trade-related concerns as well as rising interest rates.
According to IHS Markit principal automotive analyst Stephanie Brinley, shoppers don’t seem to be concerned though the uncertainty-based factors “are expected to push new-vehicle prices upward over time, affecting vehicle affordability.”
The GM Authority Take
Consumers have not killed the sedan car just yet, but they have certainly wounded it.
What this means is that automakers will need to make adjustments for their sedan offerings. While a few will make certifiably insane decisions by discontinuing all of their sedans – like Ford – others will likely take the more sensible approach by trimming sedan production and shuffling in crossovers into plants that make sedans.
Sales Numbers - GM Car Sales - Q2 2018 - United States
| MODEL | Q2 18 / Q2 17 | Q2 18 | Q2 17 | YTD 18 / YTD 17 | YTD 18 | YTD 17 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SPARK | +115.38% | 4,454 | 2,068 | +23.79% | 11,399 | 9,208 |
| SONIC | -55.68% | 4,582 | 10,338 | -41.17% | 10,565 | 17,958 |
| CRUZE | -26.20% | 37,836 | 51,265 | -26.14% | 77,691 | 105,188 |
| MALIBU | -13.55% | 42,267 | 48,894 | -8.92% | 76,417 | 83,899 |
| IMPALA | +46.34% | 13,595 | 9,290 | -11.66% | 27,662 | 31,312 |
| REGAL | +42.00% | 4,507 | 3,174 | +26.74% | 8,215 | 6,482 |
| LACROSSE | -44.65% | 4,053 | 7,323 | -9.66% | 11,119 | 12,308 |
| ATS | -2.02% | 3,785 | 3,863 | +7.46% | 7,747 | 7,209 |
| CTS | +2.60% | 2,640 | 2,573 | +0.45% | 5,082 | 5,059 |
| CT6 | -18.91% | 2,427 | 2,993 | -9.32% | 4,894 | 5,397 |
| XTS | +36.14% | 3,665 | 2,692 | +16.19% | 8,563 | 7,370 |
| TOTAL | -14.30% | 123,811 | 144,473 | -14.43% | 249,354 | 291,390 |
GM car sales fell 14.3 percent in the second quarter of 2018 and were off another 14 percent in the first half of the year.
Just where GM will land on this spectrum is currently unclear, but the automaker has previously stated that it views sedans as an opportunity, rather than a liability.
Comments
Is this not an American cycle ? I am only 50 but have watched fuel and gas prices go up and down in my life and along with that truck and SUV sales go up and down, along with car sales. It has seemed all my life its somewhat of a game played by the oil and auto industries from not only this country but others as well. First step give you low gas prices per income level. Step two wait for consumers to buy what they want ( a vehicle large and comfortable enough to take there family places ) which uses on average a larger amount of oil related products, fuel, oil, Gas. Step three slowly screw up oil related product prices until they suck the largest amount of money out of the consumer they can. Then the consumer is forced beyond there control to buy a smaller lighter more efficient vehicle. Oil related product prices fall and the cycle starts again. Oil companies win, auto companies win. Average consumers lose. Now as the average consumer is becoming younger and smarter electric energy is in play. Renewable, clean, and FREE.
We are in the large oil phase of the cycle now but it will swing and when it does it will swing to electric not oil. Oil companies are already trying to convince the average consumer they are now energy companies while they invest in wind, solar, and battery tech. Other simple thinkers are trying to convince the average consumer renewable energy actually costs more. I think certain people forget that the oil and auto companies have been around for over 100 years. Supported by governments. Some have went bankrupt, some have been split up for monopolies. I wish I would be around 100 years from now to see what we are driving.
Exactly. Oil prices are going up again, and “car” companies are reducing/stopping production of fuel efficient vehicles – cars – compact and sub compact. Take away from the poor to give to the rich.
Calling electric cars renewable, clean and free is hardly accurate and a Liberal play on words. So when your charging your car at home overnight that is costing money. Maybe not a lot but hardly free. Tesla is also charging more and more fees to use there quick charge stations to current customers. Making this power varies from dirty old coal mines to solar windmill farms so that is a mix. Also making all these batteries is not clean or free. Replacement costs on several of my friends Prius cars has been thousands of dollars. Unless our power grid is dramatically overhauled in the next 10 years, charging times are cut down into minutes rather than hours, charging stations are installed all over major cities and costs come down the all electric future will be a long way off.
Calling me liberal Ha. First off I am from South Dakota pretty liberal right. Second of all I own a business NOT A FARM, NEVER and I mean NEVER took 1 dollar of government payment for ANYTHING. Started paying for my own way at age 16. I don’t own an electric car yet. However I have installed my own solar array and sell back to the grid at less than 1/2 of what I pay them.( only in SD ) I charge golf cart batteries in the day and discharge at night. I do all my own programming of control and sell and use. Now lets just take a look at energy OK. First off the wind blows for FREE. Second the sun shines for FREE. So we should AGREE without question that the energy source is FREE. Next is all the wishy washy stuff. You know the GREY area. Dozers, earth movers, trucks, pipelines, pumps, drilling machines, fracking machines, solid waste, liquid waste, environmental hazards. ( you do know you can drink water you can’t drink oil ) Now even if it were EQUAL in the manufacturing of all that is used to mine, drill, and transport oil and or coal. Compared to what it takes to harness and distribute electricity than GREAT, EQUAL, OK. But you are a FOOL if you think from that point forward it is equal. Electricity from wind has maintenance costs for sure, but do you think they will equal ALL the truck engines, dozer engines, earth mover engines, pumps to pump the oil, pumps to move the oil. ALL the refinery pumps and machines, the gas station pumps, the waist oil form all that equipment, the waste from fracking, the environmental impact of all that. Over a few bearings, and switches every few years. And for solar you tell me what the cost is please because I am using it, FREE, FREE, FREE the sun shines and I don’t have to do anything, NOTHING. Again NOTHING, sure something in the inverter will wear out someday, but not every day, ( checking the oil, filling with fuel, checking the tire pressure, wondering if the worker is sick or will they show up for work, and on and on and on, every day for over 100 years) Will this change happen over night NO, it will take time. But will it take over 100 years, I bet not. And all of that doesn’t even mention the SUBSIDIES, from states, or governments, “O” I mean TAX PAYER. Liberal HA. INDEPENDENT – CONSERVATIVE – REALIST.
Chevrolet needs to reimagined the sedan: large like Impala with the choice of either sportback or trunk plus jam packing the sedan with plush options as standard.
Sedans need to become a compelling value proposition and best out SUVs–heated seats and leather wrapped steering wheels on all base models.
Profits will be smaller but a volume increase will help compensate. Cruze and Malibu need to break through the auto glass ceiling and grab Ford buyers before they are outsould by Kia.
I’ll never grasp the crossover craze! Even the new (amazing) Accord is down. On tge flip younger buyers are turning to sedans because the crossover was mom and dad’s car.
The driving experience. Yes, car based SUVs handle better than true trucks and offer more utility than cars, but the high center of gravity is always evident. Nobody seems to care. Manual transmissions becoming extinct, too.
Then there is looks, most car based SUVs this side of Acadia look horrendous, no better than mini vans. Subjective, but an opinion bordering on fact.
Like in 08 and 09 when gas was over $4 a gallon, lots of people were crying the blues when they filled up their SUV’s and trucks. And that can very easily happen again. So like the mistake Dodge made by discontinuing the Neon in 05, their only small car, because it was not selling very well, they missed out mightily with the $4+ gas price a few years later. So just wait, others will be crying the blues when the next gas hike hits.