The United States auto industry recently released its sales figures for the month of October 2011. During that month, the people of America went to prove that smaller is becoming more and more popular. Of the 481,450 cars sold, only 2,789 of those were large. Compared to October 2010, that figure is down 50.7 percent and the segment’s year-to-date numbers are falling as well. Both the midsize and small car segment have increased since last year by more than 10 percent while the small and midsize SUV numbers have shot up. Respectively compared to 2010, both segments have increased 19.2 and 38.9 percent. Small might actually become the new “big” fairly soon.
In the battle for individual vehicles, it was once again the Ford F-Series pickup that came out on top. With a total of 52,511 units sold in October, the Blue Oval workhorse outsold the second ranking Chevrolet Silverado by more than 15,000. A big surprise came from third and fourth place finishers, the Honda Accord and Toyota Camry. Assumingly riding a wave powered by their increased production capacity from the March earthquake, the Honda sold 22,589 units; up 5.3 percent from 2010. Despite being 11.9 percent down from last year, the Camry’s sales spike was largely to blame for the new model’s debut. 22,043 total units were sold, right above the fourth place Nissan Altima. October also broke the Chevrolet Cruze’s reign as best selling compact as both the Toyota Corolla and Honda Civic outsold the American. Another surprise attack came from the Ford Explorer, which at 11,987 total units sold, shot up 224.7 percent compared to October 2010.
The manufacture wars changed up ever so slightly for October. General Motors and Ford still held on to their number one and two spots respectively, but Toyota came back to take number three from Chrysler. 134,046 total Toyotas were sold in October compared to 114,512 Chrysler products. Even so, Chrysler was still up from last year – 27 percent – while Toyota was down by 7.9 percent. The major names from Germany all did well despite not being in their home turf. Most manufactures, including Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen and Audi increased sales by more than 20 percent compared to 2010.
Damaged by the constant drama that has consumed Saab, the Swedish company only sold 337 vehicles in the United States during October. That figure is down 54.5 percent from last year and has been falling exponentially for months now. A total of 149 Ferraris, 187 Maseratis, 162 Bentleys and 31 Rolls Royces were sold. Down 100 percent compared to October 2010 was Maybach, who managed to sell no cars. During the 26 selling days, a total of 1,021,313 light vehicles were sold in the United States during the month of October 2011.
Source: WSJ
