US car sales analysis August 2018 – brands [Updated: Tesla figures]

[Update: we have updated the figures with accurate Tesla sales estimates]

After see-sawing for most of the year, the market delivered a surprisingly stable performance in August, with sales up by 1.0%. However, because of the serious sales decline in July, the YTD growth is still just 1.4%, meaning that it’s far from guaranteed that 2018 will end up being a better year than 2017. Despite a lot of dynamism

coming from brands like Jeep and Tesla, the market’s fate will probably be driven more by whether General Motors and Ford can rekindle customers’ interest in their offerings.

Highlights:

Seven out of the Top 10 brands registered positive sales growth in August, up from four in July
From among these brands the two with the fastest growth rate were both FCA brands: Ram saw its sales grow by over 26%, as the new pickup sales finally came fully on-stream, while Jeep once again saw growth of almost 20%
Also doing very well was Hyundai, which registered double-digit growth and managed to push itself into the black YTD
The largest decline came courtesy of brands belonging to General Motors, whose almost 13% decline meant that its lead over the Ford brand shrank by half compared to 2017

Outside of the Top 10, only two mainstream mainstream brands eked out positive sales growth in August: Volkswagen and Mitsubishi, both growing considerably slower in the summer month than over the course of the year so far
The remaining mainstream brands all saw their sales fall, with the usual suspects all present and accounted for (Dodge, Mini , Chrysler, Fiat and Smart), with only Mazda truly disappointing by seeing its sales slide by the smallest amount (relative to an almost 10% YTD growth)
Among luxury brands, Tesla‘s sales took off remarkably thanks to the Model 3, with the brand quintupling (!) its sales since this time last year, allowing it to jump Audi for fourth in the luxury brand standings

Audi continued its remarkable 100+ month sales rise wave, getting to within 3,000 units of its closest Top 3 Luxury competitor, BMW, all the while the leading luxury brands Lexus, and especially Mercedes-Benz, suffered sales declines
Acura was next from among the luxury brands, and did well to register growth of almost 15%, which brought it close to moving up from YTD sales decline to growth
Other than Tesla, the luxury brand that grew most was Alfa Romeo, sales for which practically doubled on August’17, with double-digit growth also coming from Volvo and Land Rover
By comparison, August was not a great month for the likes of Porsche and Maserati, both of which saw sales fall by 13%, or Jaguar, for which they fell by over 20%
Still, this is nothing compared to Genesis, which once again saw its sales fall by two-thirds relative to last year!
Among the exclusive brands Bentley was the only brand to register a sales decline (of over 22%), while McLaren once again posted impressive growth of over 40%

Brand ranking

Monthly

YTD

#	Model	Aug’18	Aug’17	Δ	#	2018	2017	Δ
a1	General Motors*	240,236	275,552	-12.8%	a1	1,933,655	1,916,101	0.9%
a2	Ford	208,755	200,321	4.2%	a2	1,615,045	1,628,824	-0.8%
a3	Toyota	194,433	196,816	-1.2%	a3	1,432,108	1,411,181	1.5%
a4	Honda	132,831	132,883	0.0%	a5	973,357	987,701	-1.5%
a5	Nissan	101,580	97,340	4.4%	a6	909,150	955,340	-4.8%
a6	Jeep	87,502	73,191	19.6%	a7	662,430	548,833	20.7%
a7	Subaru	64,088	63,215	1.4%	a8 (1)	446,374	423,728	5.3%
a8 (1)	Hyundai	56,929	51,223	11.1%	a9 (1)	435,853	432,928	0.7%
a9 (2)	Ram	54,808	43,322	26.5%	b11	360,214	367,007	-1.9%
b10 (2)	Kia	53,864	53,323	1.0%	b10	400,539	405,462	-1.2%
b11 (1)	Dodge	35,575	43,608	-18.4%	b12 (1)	317,627	335,852	-5.4%
b12	Volkswagen	32,255	32,015	0.7%	b14 (1)	235,673	220,343	7.0%
b13	Lexus	28,622	30,801	-7.1%	b18	189,019	193,560	-2.3%
b14 (1)	Mazda	25,816	25,846	-0.1%	b16 (1)	213,865	194,559	9.9%
b15 (1)	Mercedes-Benz	24,084	28,954	-16.8%	b15 (1)	222,797	235,381	-5.3%
b16	BMW	23,789	23,553	1.0%	b17 (1)	199,157	194,604	2.3%
b17 (10)	Tesla**	23,175	3,800	509.9%	b25 (6)	84,562	27,045	212.7%
b18 (1)	Audi	20,907	19,811	5.5%	b19 (1)	148,070	141,606	4.6%
b19 (1)	Acura	15,072	13,132	14.8%	b22	100,972	101,180	-0.2%
b20 (1)	Chrysler	12,219	12,652	-3.4%	b20 (1)	112,473	128,050	-12.2%
b21 (1)	Infiniti	10,796	10,986	-1.7%	b23	92,713	100,969	-8.2%
b22 (1)	Volvo	8,970	7,993	12.2%	b28 (1)	65,214	48,987	33.1%
b23 (2)	Lincoln	8,945	8,708	2.7%	b27 (2)	67,112	73,920	-9.2%
b24 (2)	Mitsubishi	8,416	8,164	3.1%	b24 (2)	85,693	70,765	21.1%
b25 (1)	Land Rover	7,179	6,320	13.6%	b29 (1)	58,167	48,074	21.0%
b26 (1)	Porsche	4,083	4,709	-13.3%	b30 (1)	37,524	36,178	3.7%
b27 (1)	Mini	3,800	4,448	-14.6%	b31 (1)	30,732	31,048	-1.0%
b28	Jaguar	2,469	3,101	-20.4%	b32	19,136	26,932	-28.9%
b29 (2)	Alfa Romeo	2,240	1,140	96.5%	b33 (3)	16,521	6,084	171.5%
b30 (1)	Fiat	1,374	2,120	-35.2%	b34 (1)	10,899	19,046	-42.8%
b31 (1)	Maserati	950	1,089	-12.8%	b36 (1)	7,463	8,872	-15.9%
b32 (2)	Genesis	613	1,803	-66.0%	b35 (1)	8,490	13,366	-36.5%
b33 (1)	Bentley	165	213	-22.5%	b37 (2)	1,312	1,516	-13.5%
b34 (2)	McLaren	125	89	40.4%	b38 (4)	911	555	64.1%
b35 (2)	Smart	108	229	-52.8%	b39 (2)	861	2,394	-64.0%
b36 (1)	Lamborghini	94	91	3.3%	b40	752	728	3.3%
b37	Rolls-Royce	90	86	4.7%	b41	720	685	5.1%