The sales figures are in for May, and they’re quite interesting! GM had a good lead over crosstown rival Ford, but Toyota, surprisingly, wasn’t far behind. Nissan flipped spots with Hyundai, selling more than the Korean automaker, but both were below Chrysler. Sales for BMW and Mercedes-Benz were mostly flat over April’s, and both were under 25,000 vehicles sold for the month.
While luxury car sales were flat or down a bit, so were the bread-and-butter Japanese cars from Toyota and Honda. Meanwhile, domestic rivals Ford and GM were both up significant amounts, as were less popular Japanese brands Mazda and Nissan. It’s hard to say what caused this turn of events, although Toyota’s sales will be an enigma for some time due to their recent recall issues.
More surprising was Nissan’s jump, which is almost back up to March’s sales level. With the 2011 Mustang and Heavy Duty F-Series trucks, Ford is bound to have a good summer, and on GM’s side, their heavy duty trucks were recently unveiled, which can only help as truck sales are rebounding faster than many other segments.
All in all, May was a good month for the new-car business, with just over 1.1-million vehicles sold, a sharp rise from April, and even above March’s numbers, which until now were the year’s best. With 4.6-million vehicles sold already in 2010, I predict that we’ll see a total of 9 to 11 million sales.
Stay tuned to Road Reality for an update next month with June’s sales.
by John Suit