Lack of compacts blamed as U.S. vehicle sales drop again
By Ken Bensinger
Los Angeles Times
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Falling gasoline prices didn't help automakers in August as economic worries and an overabundance of trucks rather than compact cars continued to drag down U.S. sales results.
Overall industry sales fell 15.5 percent last month compared with a year earlier and are off 11.2 percent for the year, according to Autodata Corp.
Once again, American brands led the plunge. General Motors Corp. had a sales decline of 20 percent in August from the same month last year, to 308,817 cars and light trucks sold. Ford Motor Co. sold 151,021 cars and light trucks for the month, a 26 percent decline. And Chrysler reported a 34 percent sales drop.
Toyota Motor Corp., the No. 2 manufacturer by volume, saw a 9.4 percent decline to 211,533 vehicles. Honda Motor Co., was down 7.3 percent on the month, to 146,855 vehicles, its worst showing of the year.
Among the world's six largest manufacturers, only one — Nissan Motor Co. — showed growth in U.S. sales last month. Its sales rose 13.6 percent in August, following an 8.5 percent increase in July. The strong showing put it within just 1,743 vehicles of overtaking Chrysler for fifth place for U.S. car sales.
Beyond Nissan, only Volkswagen and Subaru Motor Co., saw sales increase in August.
The numbers did contain some hope for automakers. The annualized sales rate rose to 13.72 million in August from 12.6 million in July. Last year, automakers sold 16.1 million vehicles nationwide.
Nissan's results surprised the industry. Nissan's truck and SUV sales rose 33 percent in August, and industry executives suggested that Nissan's success was the result of "aggressive" sales incentives, particularly on larger, less-efficient vehicles. Nissan's incentives were up, significantly, over their 2007 levels, and more than double those offered by Toyota and Honda. Still, they remained lower than GM and Ford in many cases.
For example, Nissan's Titan full-size pickup, which starts at $23,700, carried an estimated $5,072 in incentives in August, compared with $6,534 for the GMC Silverado, which has a base price of $17,590.
