February sales: More stagnation as harsh weather suppresses volume
Wild weather impacted just about every major U.S. market in February.
February is usually an unimpressive sales month just by virtue of its length, but this past one also saw more record-setting weather throughout the U.S., further depressing what is already the least-remarkable volume entry on the calendar.
Just two months in, there aren't too many conclusions we can reach about 2019 quite yet, but some OEMs have offered some insights we find worthy of repeating. Volkswagen's SUV sales represented 50 percent of its total volume, lending even more credibility to past calls for the company to offer a more compelling suite of larger cars.
Honda is quite proud of Acura, and has every reason to be. The subsidiary has cracked off two straight months of noteworthy gains in a challenging market, and remains up more than 10 percent so far this year.
On the domestic front, FCA is really our only source of news, and perhaps the most noteworthy item aside from Ram's continued surge is the fact that every current non-Fiat model sold by FCA outsold the entire Fiat brand with only two exceptions: the Alfa Romeo 4C (only 16 units sold) and the Jeep Gladiator (not yet even officially on-sale).
Subaru continues to roll, much to nobody's surprise, while Mazda and Volkswagen appear to be stalled out (especially the former). On the luxury front, BMW managed to pull out a win for the month, though the Bavarians lag Mercedes-Benz so far in year-to-date volume with Lexus consistently in third in both categories.
[NOTES: We are no longer using Automotive News as a source for Tesla delivery estimates. We will report Tesla's quarterly numbers directly in our YTD figures and provide our own estimates for monthly sales and YTD figures in the intervening months.]
February, 2019
- Acura up 11.3%, 12,213
- Alfa down 13%, 1,362
- Audi down 12.2%, 13,560
- *Bentley up 2.4%, 169
- BMW flat, 23,558
- **Buick
- **Cadillac
- **Chevrolet
- Chrysler down 36%, 10,368
- Dodge down 8%, 37,073
- Fiat down 50%, 616
- **Ford
- Genesis up 12.1%, 1,528
- **GMC
- Honda down 1.6%, 102,926
- Hyundai up 2%, 45,612
- Infiniti down 17.3%, 10,607
- Jaguar up 58.6%, 3,465
- Jeep down 4%, 67,075
- Kia up 6.7%, 43,406
- *Lamborghini up 3.2%, 97
- Land Rover up 19.4%, 8,151
- Lexus up 4.4%, 20,122
- **Lincoln
- *Maserati down 0.6%, 925
- Mazda down 7.3%, 23,852
- ***Mercedes-Benz down 12.5%, 21,660
- MINI down 12.6%, 2,679
- Mitsubishi up 6.1%, 13,760
- Nissan down 11.4%, 103,735
- Porsche up 10.1%, 4,826
- Ram up 24%, 45,542
- smart down 45.3%, 58
- Subaru up 3.9%, 49,081
- †Tesla up 350%, 32,000
- Toyota down 6.3%, 152,626
- Volkswagen down 3.6%, 25,706
- Volvo up 5.6%, 6,635
2019 YTD
- Acura up 10.6%, 21,977
- Alfa down 22%, 2,512
- Audi down 7.2%, 27,813
- *Bentley up 5%, 338
- BMW down 2%, 41,660
- **Buick
- **Cadillac
- **Chevrolet
- Chrysler down 27%, 19,422
- Dodge down 5%, 64,150
- Fiat down 45%, 1,367
- **Ford
- Genesis down 7.5%, 2,752
- **GMC
- Honda down 0.5%, 199,301
- Hyundai up 2.4%, 86,408
- Infiniti down 10.9%, 20,909
- Jaguar up 36.6%, 6,543
- Jeep down 3%, 125,476
- Kia up 5.9%, 80,782
- *Lamborghini up 3.2%, 194
- Land Rover up 17%, 15,536
- Lexus up 1%, 37,542
- **Lincoln
- *Maserati up 1.2%, 1,850
- Mazda down 13.4%, 43,879
- ***Mercedes-Benz down 11.8%, 44,167
- MINI down 14.4%, 5,136
- Mitsubishi up 4.7%, 22,471
- Nissan down 15.6%, 194,174
- Porsche up 11.4%, 10,245
- Ram up 24%, 85,191
- smart down 33.2%, 141
- Subaru up 3.9%, 95,153
- †Tesla up 350%, 64,000
- Toyota down 6.7%, 291,217
- Volkswagen down 5.1%, 48,780
- Volvo up 5.4%, 12,489
*Automotive News estimate
†Leftlane estimate
**GM and Ford no longer report monthly sales figures
***Excludes Mercedes-Benz Vans
All figures represent direct year-to-year volume changes, not adjusted for selling days.