USA - Sales for the first quarter of 2017 have taken a nose dive in the USA, but the top models remain the same.

• SUVs, Pickups increase their share of total market while cars continue to slide
• Ford’s F-Series trucks maintain their top selling position; Toyota Camry is best-selling car
• Volkswagen beginning to recover from effects of diesel crisis

Vehicle sales for the first quarter of 2017 fell 1.9% over the same period in 2016. Analysts had predicted a small increase for March sales but saw a decline despite reported high incentives spending. SUVs and Pickup Trucks continue to gain market share, with Honda’s 4.3% increase in share driven by sales from the CR-V and returning Ridgeline, which as re-entered the market after a two model year hiatus.

Once again, the top three best selling vehicles in the United States are the Ford F-Series, Chevrolet Silverado, and Ram Pickup. Ford’s F-Series line of trucks continues as the best-selling vehicle overall, selling 205,281 units in the first quarter of 2017, up from 186,121 units during the same time period in 2016.

Gaining ground on the top three is the forth best-selling vehicle and the best-selling SUV, Nissan Rogue, selling 100,000 units in the quarter in sales for the first time. Toyota Camry remained the best selling car, despite declining sales (83,459 units vs. 96,244 units), followed closely by the Honda Civic and Toyota Corolla (81,654 and 76,086 units respectively).

After years of declining sales, Volkswagen looks they might have turned the tide, increasing their sales by almost 7,000 units when compared to the same time period last year (76,293 vs, 69,316 units). These gains were largely driven by increased Golf family sales, which were up 48.2% for the quarter. VW has posted four consecutive monthly sales increases and will be introducing the Atlas full-sized SUV soon which should help it continue to show positive movement.

Continuing the trend of recent years, the market share of SUVs and Trucks continue to rise within the United States. In the first quarter of 2017, SUVs, Trucks, and Vans represented 58%, 5 percentage points more than what was seen in 2016. This increase was mostly due to the ever increasing popularity of smaller SUVs and crossovers like the Nissan Rogue, Honda CR-V, and Toyota RAV4.

The biggest decline was seen in the D-Segment. The segment decline in sales by 2.5 percentage points, from 16.9% in Q1 2016 to 14.% in Q1 2017. This decline has been seen throughout the segment, including market leaders like Toyota Camry, Ford Fusion, and Chevrolet Malibu.

While car sales were down overall, the A- and F-Segments (small cars and large luxury cars) actually had increases year-over-year. The Chevy Spark was up almost 40% for the quarter, while the new Lincoln Continental was a major reason for the gain in the F-Segment.

USA - Toyota Camry takes top spot in Cars.com American-Made Index with the US produced car utilising 75% US Content.

Toyota Camry takes top spot in Cars.com American-Made Index

The best-selling car in America for 14 consecutive years is on another streak that recognizes its American symbolism: another award from Cars.com for most American-made. For the second year in a row and sixth time overall, the Toyota Camry claims the top position on Cars.com’s American-Made Index.

 

The Cars.com American-Made Index rates vehicles built and bought in the U.S. Factors include the percentage of parts considered domestic under federal regulations, whether the car is assembled in the U.S. and U.S. sales.

 

Models with a domestic parts content rating below 75 percent are disqualified along with models built exclusively outside the U.S. or models soon to be discontinued without a U.S.-built successor. According to NHTSA, the U.S.-sold domestic content for Camry is 75 percent.

 

The Camry is assembled at Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Kentucky, Inc. (TMMK) in Georgetown, Ky., and more than 270 supplier locations in the United States provide content for the current generation. TMMK is Toyota’s largest vehicle manufacturing plant in the world with annual capacity to produce 550,000 vehicles and 600,000 engines.

 

“This recognition from Cars.com is a tribute to Toyota employees, not only those at the plant who build the Camry, but the broader Toyota team who design, engineer, market and finance the vehicle in the United States,” said Bob Carter, Toyota senior vice president of automotive operations. 

“We also support local suppliers and economies, and we have invested more than $6 billion into our Kentucky operations alone, which is growing with our new production engineering campus under construction there.”

 

Toyota’s Georgetown footprint covers more than 1,300 acres just north of Lexington, Ky., and the facility is 8.1 million sq. ft., a space equal to 169 football fields under one roof. In addition to Camry and Camry Hybrid, TMMK assembles the Avalon, Avalon Hybrid and Lexus ES 350, which began production last fall, the first time a Lexus vehicle has been produced in the U.S. 

The plant also produces axles, steering components, machined blocks, cylinder heads, crankshafts, camshafts and rods and axle assemblies. Since vehicle production began in 1988, more than 10 million vehicles have rolled off the Georgetown assembly line where full-time employment is nearly 8,000.

 

Toyota has a second vehicle on the Cars.com American-Made Index: the Sienna, assembled at Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Indiana in Princeton, ranks third. The Indiana plant celebrated its 20^th anniversary in May.

 

In addition to manufacturing, a significant amount of design and engineering of both Camry and Sienna took place in the United States at Calty Design Research, Inc. and Toyota Technical Center (TTC), respectively. 

Calty is headquartered in Newport Beach, Calif., with a production design studio in Ann Arbor, Mich., and TTC is based in York Township, Mich. Both Camry and Sienna have American chief engineers.

 

Toyota has five assembly plants in the United States, which produced 1.34 million vehicles in 2015, and another five manufacturing facilities that produce vehicle engines, parts and components. Toyota annually purchases $35.3 billion of parts/components and goods and services in the United States.

 

Toyota has nearly 35,000 direct employees in the U.S., which includes nearly 25,000 in manufacturing.

USA - Honda Accord Tops Retail Sales in 2013

Honda says its Accord was the best-selling car among individual buyers in 2013, citing new vehicle registration data by Polk.

Honda managed to sell 366,678 units of its midsize sedan, according to its sales records, with most of these sales coming from retail customers. While Toyota actually sold more Camrys overall (408,261), many of these were fleet purchases. In pure retail sales, Accord moved 360,089 units, compared to 342,007 Camrys.

The compact Honda Civic car beat out the Toyota Corolla in both retail and total sales. In total, Civic sales rose 5.7 percent to 336,180, over the Corolla's 293,177.

Honda's core products—Accord, Civic, and CR-V—together posted retail sales of over 1.11 million units in 2013, Honda reports. This is up 8.4 percent from a year ago. The company says each of these three products topped retail sales in their respective segments. Each garnered sales from more than 300,000 individual car buyers in the U.S.

The perennial battle between Honda and Toyota will only get fiercer. Toyota is expected to refresh its Camry sedan for the 2015 model year, which may help it gain traction over the all-new Accord. And other automakers are quickly entering the fray. The Mazda6, Kia Optima, and Ford Fusion are snatching up buyers once secured for Toyota and Honda. Many of these consumers are also entering the entry-level luxury category, which has become more affordable than ever.

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