Nissan surprised automotive analysts with a 13.6 percent U.S. sales gain in August over the same month last year, while most of the other major automakers posted sharp declines, including archrival Toyota, whose sales fell 9.4 percent.
Even more surprising was the fact that Nissan trucks and SUVs, not its fuel-efficient models, led the sales increase.
By contrast, Honda, whose lineup is loaded with small, fuel-efficient vehicles, reported sales down 7.3 percent from a year ago.
The Big Three U.S. automakers all posted double-digit declines, with Chrysler LLC the worst, down 34.5 percent.
Franklin-based Nissan North America Inc. posted a 0.8 percent decline in overall car sales for the month, but reported a 32.4 percent increase in truck sales, led by the Smyrna-built Frontier midsize pickup, up 55.5 percent, and the Xterra compact SUV, up 76.9 percent.
"Nissan appears to have had the best month of any automaker," said Jesse Toprak, executive director of industry analysis for Edmunds.com.
"Although some of their smaller vehicles performed well without incentives, most of their SUV and truck gains occurred because of very high incentives.
"But Nissan did not have a particularly good August last year," Toprak said.
August sales for Nissan and Infiniti combined totaled 108,493 units in August, compared with 95,527 a year ago, the automaker reported. Nissan division sales were up 14.2 percent, and Infiniti, the luxury division, up 8 percent.
GM improvesGeneral Motors Corp. reported a 20.4 percent drop from August 2007, but that was a 31 percent increase for the nation's largest automaker in sales over July, which was the company's worst month of the year so far.
GM's month-over-month sales jump was generally attributed to the automaker's "employee pricing for everyone" promotion that was in effect for the last two weeks of August.
Based on the encouraging results of that promotion, GM said Wednesday that it would extend the offer through the end of September; it had been set to expire this past Tuesday. The employee pricing — generally about 10 percent below invoice — comes on top of hefty rebates offered on many 2008 models.
"The no-haggle pricing aspect of the GM promotion was particularly pleasing to consumers," Toprak said.
"GM also got some help from the lower gas prices in August, down about 50 cents a gallon from the peak in July," he added. "That certainly helped persuade some consumers who were on the fence to buy a new SUV or truck in August."
At GM, cars were down 13.9 percent from last August, while trucks were off 24.3 percent. But the midsize Chevrolet Malibu continued to break sales records, posting an 8.4 percent increase.
For the year to date through August, the Malibu is up 32.4 percent.
Another GM bright spot for the month was the sales results for its Buick Enclave and GMC Acadia large crossover vehicles.
The Enclave was up 60.1 percent, and the Acadia 25 percent. The vehicles are built on the same architecture as the new, Spring Hill-built 2009 Chevrolet Traverse, which goes on sale in October.
Focus sees gainFord Motor Co. continued its tough sales year with a 26.5 percent decrease from August 2007, as well as a 3.6 percent decrease from July, which had been its worst month of the year.
One bright spot, though, was that sales of the Focus compact car jumped 23 percent over last August, and the Escape compact crossover utility vehicle climbed 17 percent.
But Ford's overall car sales dropped 9 percent, and truck sales were off 32 percent from last August.
Trucks are Ford's most-profitable products, and its F-150 pickup has been particularly hard-hit, falling earlier this year from the No. 1 sales spot it had held for 22 years.
Chrysler's August sales results were expected and were not of serious concern, Toprak said.
"This is a restructuring time for them and they are cutting fleet sales dramatically," he said.
"They also discontinued leasing of vehicles in August, which usually is 15 to 20 percent of their August business."
Shortages cause declinesToyota and Honda had to deal with shortages of their hottest-selling vehicles during August — their most fuel-efficient models. That's primarily what caused their sales declines, Toprak said.
"The Honda Fit was down 25 percent because dealers ran out of the leftover 2008 models, and the 2009 models had not arrived yet," he said. The redesigned 2009 Fit subcompact was originally scheduled to go on sale in October, but Honda moved up the launch to Aug. 28 because of the shortage of 2008 models.
Sales of the popular Honda CR-V compact crossover dropped 17 percent in August from last year, again because of limited availability rather than any lack of consumer interest, Toprak said.
Consumers' rapid shift to small cars from larger vehicles in June and July because of peaking gasoline prices "caught Toyota and Honda at a bad time, and they couldn't react fast enough," Toprak said.
"Nissan was able to respond to the shift better, because it had a better inventory of vehicles," he said.
Among the other automakers' August results, Volkswagen was down 2.3 percent from last year, Mazda was off 4.4 percent, Subaru was up 14.2 percent, Suzuki declined 31.8 percent, Mitsubishi was down 29.3 percent, Hyundai/Kia dropped 8 percent, Porsche was off 44.9 percent, Mercedes-Benz fell 0.2 percent, and BMW was down 1 percent.
Retail Sales Disappoint
GM whomps Toyota, but sales still dive
