{"id":139379,"date":"2019-09-05T09:49:00","date_gmt":"2019-09-05T13:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thedetroitbureau.com\/?p=139379"},"modified":"2019-09-05T11:55:57","modified_gmt":"2019-09-05T15:55:57","slug":"japanese-brands-lead-august-new-vehicle-sales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/2019\/09\/japanese-brands-lead-august-new-vehicle-sales\/","title":{"rendered":"Japanese Brands Lead August New Vehicle Sales"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
The Honda Civic sold big in August, posting a 25.8% gain last month.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Strong sales by Japanese brands helped bolster sales of new vehicles in August \u2013 led by Toyota, Honda and Subaru \u2013 despite warnings the market could be on the verge of softening.<\/p>\n

American Honda \u2013 Honda and Acura \u2013 broke an all-time monthly sales records for total vehicles and trucks and the Honda brand also recorded its best-ever month, driven by record truck sales and robust passenger car sales.<\/p>\n

Honda cars also enjoyed a big August, with Civic\u00a0up 25.8% and Accord up 14.3%. Each\u00a0topped 30,000 units in sales and even sales of the subcompact Fit gaining 58.2%.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

(August Auto Sales Results\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>Will Be a Mixed Bag, Analysts Say)<\/i><\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

The figures from Honda appear to indicate that buyers are taking a second look as passenger cars, which are less expensive than trucks and sport-utility vehicles as average transaction prices continue to climb.<\/p>\n

Transaction prices for new cars continued to rise year over year in August. According to Kelley Blue Book estimates, the average transaction price for a new vehicle in the U.S. was $37,401, which is down slightly from last month but up 2% from year-ago levels.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Honda Accord also enjoy brisk sales during the month of August, seeing sales jump 14.3%.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Both Honda and Toyota have made a point of emphasizing they had no plans to exit the passenger car business.<\/p>\n

Toyota Motor North America\u00a0also\u00a0reported August increase of 11.3% on a volume basis and up 7.4% on daily selling rate basis versus August 2018.\u00a0Sales of the Corolla increased 15.2% and sales of the Camry increased 6.2%.<\/p>\n

Overall, Toyota division achieved a best-ever August Lexus division posted an increase 4.6% on a volume basis and up 0.8% on a daily sales rate.<\/p>\n

Hyundai Motor America reported a 12% increase when compared with August 2018 and the 13th<\/sup>\u00a0straight month of increasing total sales on a comparative monthly basis.<\/p>\n

Another\u00a0big winner in August was Subaru, which posted a 9.3% sales increase and enjoyed its best year in history last month.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn closing out August, we are ecstatic to see Subaru achieve its best sales month in our history, with a record 93rd month of consecutive sales increases,\u201d said Thomas J. Doll, president and CEO, Subaru of America Inc. \u201cIt is through the dedication of our retailers in satisfying our customers that we continue to see growing demand for our products, which should result in another record year for our franchise.\u201d<\/p>\n

(China Moving to Offset Impact of Trump Tariffs\u00a0and Jumpstart Auto Sales)<\/i><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Volkswagen also posted a 9.8% sales increase as it enjoyed the best August sales in six years.\u00a0August sales up 3% with the launch of the all-new Q3 and continued growth of A6, A7, A8.<\/p>\n

Nissan brands sales increased by 16.2%, breaking a long losing streak,\u00a0but Infiniti-brand sales continued to struggle falling by\u00a014.9% in August.<\/p>\n

Volvo also reported a 2.4% sales increase during August with the S60 sedan seeing the greatest percentage increase in sales, 58%.\u00a0BMW brand sales increased 7.2% in August 2019, while Mercedes-Benz USA \u00a0reported August increased 21.8% increase over August 2018.<\/p>\n

\u201cAugust was our eighth consecutive month of growth and represents our best year since 2007,\u201d said Anders Gustafsson, president and CEO, Volvo Car USA and Senior Vice President Americas. \u201cCertified by Volvo sales also continued tremendous growth, up 30% year-to-date,\u201d he added. \u201cIn July Certified by Volvo was the fastest-growing Certified program in the U.S, according to independent data.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Toyota Corolla followed the lead of other automakers by moving big numbers of the car last month.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Jaguar Land Rover today reported August 2019 U.S. sales: Jaguar Land Rover total August U.S. sales reached 8,700 units, a 10% decrease from August 2018; Land Rover sales were 6,572 units, down 8% from 7,179 in August 2018; Jaguar sales were 2,128 units, a 14% decrease from 2,469 units in August 2018. For the calendar year, Jaguar Land Rover achieved 79,581 units, an increase of 3% vs. 77,303 in 2018.<\/p>\n

General Motors, Ford and Fiat Chrysler no longer report monthly sales figures, but analysts were expecting all three to match or come in just below the sales pace from August 2018.<\/p>\n

\u201cAugust sales are coming in hot as aggressive incentives lifted the market above our forecast. However, the calendar is significantly impacting today\u2019s results, so a clear interpretation of market strength is difficult.\u00a0An increase in August sales over last year was almost guaranteed given the extra selling day and inclusion of the Labor Day holiday weekend with August\u2019s results,\u201d noted\u00a0Charlie Chesbrough, senior economist, Cox Automotive<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd, the surprisingly strong numbers may be misleading.\u00a0Although the retail\/fleet mix is not yet known, the strong performance of some vehicle lines suggests heavy fleet activity may have occurred for some brands.\u00a0There are also some worrisome signals in the reported results.\u00a0Small car sales were up big for some OEMs, bucking recent trends, while their luxury brand numbers were weak.\u00a0This may suggest affordability is having an increasingly large impact on consumer purchases,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

(Auto Lenders Relaxing Requirements for Subprime Buyers)<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Jessica Caldwell, Edmunds\u2019 executive director of industry analysis, said,\u00a0\u201cThe model-year sell-down is still in full swing, and automakers and dealers are moving things along just like they should at this time of year.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Strong sales by Japanese brands helped bolster sales of new vehicles in August \u2013 led by Toyota, Honda and Subaru \u2013 despite warnings the market could be on the verge of softening. However, Honda set new sales record for passenger cars and trucks during the month and overall passenger cars performed well during the month. Get details at TheDetroitBureau.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20009,"featured_media":128734,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,8,5],"tags":[],"make":[],"post-state":[],"category_old":[118,140,150,151,123,299,132,283,125,124,139,148,128,278,288],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139379"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20009"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139379\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139379"},{"taxonomy":"make","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/make?post=139379"},{"taxonomy":"post-state","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post-state?post=139379"},{"taxonomy":"category_old","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/category_old?post=139379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}