Sales of sports cars in the US were down 2% in 2019 as this type of vehicle accounts for 1.6% of the total US car market with fewer than 270,000 deliveries, of which more than two thirds (67.4%, down from 70% in 2018) were one of the three American muscle cars Mustang, Challenger or Camaro. These three are in a continuous battle for the title of America’s best selling sports car and the Mustang has been in the lead since 2016 while the Challenger knocked down the Camaro to grab the #2 spot in 2018 and stayed there in 2019. Just the Chevrolet Corvette and the Hyundai Veloster manage more than 10,000 annual sales in the US with the rest all below that threshold. [Read more…]
Sales of EVs and PHEVs in the US showed a decline of 9% in 2019 after a very slow second half of the year. Battery electric vehicle sales were up 3% to nearly 240,000 which is about 1.4% of the total US car market, up from 1.3% in 2018. Plug-in hybrid sales were down a harsh 31% to below 89,000 which is 0.5% of the total US car market, down from 0.7% in 2018. And while the PHEV market is very fragmented with 16 different brands offering 30 models of which none has a share of more than 10%, the EV market is clearly dominated by a single player: Tesla. More than 8 out of every 10 EVs sold in the US are from the Californian brand, with the second best selling brand, Chevrolet, holding just 6.8% of the market. Another interesting trend to see is that dedicated green vehicles appear to be much more popular than electrified versions of existing models. The top-6 best selling EVs which account for 94.4% of all EV sales in the US are EV-only models, while from the other models only the VW e-Golf and the Fiat 500e manage to get a take rate above 10% for the EV version. 
Sales of commercial vans in the US are up 8% in 2019 to set a new annual sales record for the segment at nearly half a million sales. Six out of the twelve models als set annual sales records for their nameplates. Like in the large pickup segment, Ford has a dominating lead, owning nearly 40% of the segment with its two models, while the chart topping Ford Transit sells nearly double of its nearest rival. The Transit saw its sales jump 12% to a record 153,800 sales, while the golden oldie Chevrolet Express keeps going strong as despite a 5% decline in sales the model is still above its average annual sales of the last 10 years, not bad for a model first launched in 1995 and last updated in 2004, especially if you consider its twin GMC Savana scored a 23% increase in sales in 2019 which means General Motors actually improved sales of these twins and sold over 100,000 combined units of these vans in the United States for the second consecutive year and only the third time since 2008. 
The US can’t get enough from their large pickup trucks. Sales of these vehicles increased another 3% in 2019 to set a new annual sales record for large pickup trucks after 10 consecutive years of growth, which more than doubled the annual sales to nearly 2.5 million trucks. And average transaction prices in this segment have never been as high as now, with the top-of-the-line trucks fetching over $70k, which is great news for the Detroit Three automakers who dominate this segment and are raking in fat profits from it. Traditional leader Ford F-Series is down 1% to below 900,000 sales, but still holds a 36.1% share of the segment by itself. 
The midsized pickup segment in the US grows for the sixth consecutive year in 2019, and the total annual volume for this class has improved from 244,300 in 2013 to 639,200 in 2019, which is more than 2.5 times in those six years. Back then, production of the first generation of the two GM models had just ended, the RAM Dakota was already pulled two years before, and the first generation Honda Ridgeline was near the end of its life cycle. Since then, GM has launched the second generation of the Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon twins and Honda has replaced the Ridgeline, Toyota has renewed the best seller Tacoma and Ford and Jeep have (re-)entered the segment with the Ranger and Gladiator. The only thing that hasn’t changed since 2004 is the Nissan Frontier. In 2020 we may finally see a new generation of Nissan’s midsized pickup in the US as well, about five its years after the rest of the world received their latest Navara. 
The full-sized SUV segment in the US grew 5% in 2019 to return to above half a million annual sales for the first time since 2007. This segment takes 3% of the total US car market, up from 2.8% in 2018. Over half of all sales in this class (including luxury SUVs) are for a General Motors product (52.3% market share), despite having one of the oldest line-ups in the segment. A new generation of the GM products was launched early 2020 and should bring them closer to the competition in terms of technology. Especially in the non-luxury part of this class, fleet sales to government, large businesses and rental companies are a very important market for this type of vehicle, which makes price more important than ride quality, handling and refinement. 
Sales of midsized SUVs in the United States are up 6% in 2019 as almost 2.7 million of these family haulers are sold, which makes up 15.8% of the total US car market, up from 14.6% in 2018. We have a new class leader due to the redesign of the two top sellers from last year, which has turned the top-3 upside down. The Ford Explorer has been the best selling midsized SUV in the US since 2011, but a 26% decline in deliveries in 2019 has dropped it to third place as the new generation, launched in the second quarter, still hasn’t picked up traction. It was outsold by the Toyota Highlander, also new in 2019 but launched in the fourth quarter, down 2% to hold on to 2nd place in the segment. That means that the Jeep Grand Cherokee, eight years after its last major redesign, grabs the top spot thanks to an 8% increase in deliveries. Since the launch of its current generation in 2011, the Jeep Grand Cherokee improved every year until 2018, but in 2019 it rebounded from that little bump to improve again. And its nearly 243,000 sales are the model’s highest annual volume since 2000. 
After a slight improvement in deliveries in 2018, the minivan segment in the US declines by 15% in 2019 and barely stays above 400,000 sales, making this the second-worst ever year for minivans, after the 386,800 in 2009. Just 2.4% of all vehicle sales in the United States are minivans, down from 2.8% in 2018 and 3.1% in 2016. All models in this segment lose sales in 2019, and only one does so by single digits: the Honda Odyssey’s 7% loss, which allows it to gain 2.1 percentage points of share and leapfrog the Chrysler Pacifica for the #2 spot. However, both these models dip below the 100,000 sales mark, for the Odyssey this happens for the first time since 1999 and the Pacifica hasn’t been below that threshold since its first full year of sales 2017. 
