Acura, Alfa Romeo, Audi, Chrysler, Dodge, Fiat, Ford, Infiniti, Jeep, Lexus, Mitsubishi, Nissan, & Toyota US Sales Down In 3rd Quarter
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Overall, non-Tesla US passenger vehicle sales were up by 14,910 units in the 3rd quarter of 2019 compared to the 3rd quarter of 2018, and 14 brands saw their sales increase while 13 saw their sales decrease.
The brands that saw their sales increase were BMW, Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Lincoln, Mercedes, MINI, Ram, Subaru, Volkswagen, and Volvo.
The brands that saw their sales decrease were Acura, Alfa Romeo, Audi, Chrysler, Dodge, Fiat, Ford, Infiniti, Jeep, Lexus, Mitsubishi, Nissan, and Toyota.
For the month of September, however, using estimates for 12 brands based on their quarterly data, non-Tesla passenger auto sales were down by 90,616 units.
In the 3rd quarter, Ford sales tanked (by more than 32,000 units) while Chevy sales and Ram sales rose sharply (by more than 22,000 units each). Honda and Mercedes also saw strong year-over-year growth.
Despite Honda’s quarterly growth, however, Honda saw sales fall through the floor in September, with year-over-year sales dropping by more than 16,000 units. The only brand to lose more sales — and by far — was Toyota, which saw its sales decline by more than 27,000 units. Nissan also had a huge sales drop in September, down more than 16,000 sales, like Honda.
It’s unclear at this point if September auto sales (down nearly 91,000 units) is the important new trend or if it’s just a balancing out of sales in a quarter that was net positive (up nearly 15,000). It’s also unclear why Honda, Toyota, and Nissan took such a strong hit. Though, as I pointed out a couple of weeks ago, it is a wonder that so many people are still buying their top sellers when they could be buying the Tesla Model 3, which has a similar cost of ownership for many people while also having much better tech and being safer, much quicker, sportier, greener, cleaner, and cooler (objectively).
For the record, our estimate for 3rd quarter Tesla US sales are down about 10,000 from the 3rd quarter of 2018, a time when Tesla was starting to fulfill US Model 3 orders at a high volume and wasn’t yet shipping the Model 3 to Europe, Asia, Australia, etc. Though, Model 3 sales back then were still going to a lot of early reservation holders whereas almost all Model 3 sales in the 3rd quarter of this year were going to consumers making fresh orders for the car. Additionally, its global sales were up to a record level and it seems the company does not have production capacity to match consumer demand, since the company stated, “we achieved record net orders in Q3 and are entering Q4 with an increase in our order backlog.”
If you have any more thoughts on September or 3rd quarter US auto sales, drop us a note down below. Here’s a table of September and 3rd quarter sales (brands in yellow do not report monthly sales, only quarterly, so they are informed estimates):
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