North America Light-Vehicle Production Flat in First-Half 2017

Automakers in North America built 1,543,246 light vehicles in June, 5.1% behind year-ago’s 1,626,392.

With U.S. sales coming in below expectations, production began to fall in line, pulling back 10.1% to 981,607 units after growing in May.

Car output tumbled 26.5% to 276,590 as many consumers and manufacturers continue to shift their focus to light trucks. Nissan fell 14.0% to 27,471 cars and Hyundai was down 18.5% to 28,156.

Toyota plummeted 23.9% to 51,056 cars, while its Georgetown, KY, plant was undergoing retooling for its TNGA (Toyota New Global Architecture) scalable platform.

Bucking the trend, Subaru’s car total more than doubled to 13,216 and Kia built 36.7% more cars than last June.

Year-to-date, U.S. car output was 17.1% lower than first-half 2016 with 1,697,551 units.

Light-truck production in the U.S. dipped 1.5% to 705,017 in June, but was 1.4% ahead of last year’s 6-month total. General Motors (+17.1%), Subaru (+22.9%) and Toyota (+5.0%) contributed to the growth through the first half of the year.

Several GM facilities in the U.S. began early summer break at the end of month including Hamtramck (MI) Lansing Grand River (MI) and Lordstown (OH), cutting monthly tallies more than 50% year-over-year. The Lansing Delta plant built 1,726 units in June, a fraction of year-ago’s 20,597 total.

The overall U.S. light-vehicle output was 5,812,310 through June, a 4.8% decrease from same-period 2016. Forecasts call for continued slowdowns to relieve bloated inventory while sales hit a plateau.

Production in Canada slowed 1.3% to 215,912 LVs for the month. The 1.4% increase in light-truck builds to 148,802 was not enough to balance the 6.8% drop in car output to 67,110.

Toyota fell 9.19% to 49,881 LVs and Ford was down 5.0% to 24,867, while FCA increased an estimated 4.2% to 57,226.

Year-to-date, automakers in Canada assembled 1,208,911 units, falling 2.4% from first-half 2016.

Outpacing the region, plants in Mexico built a June record of 345,727 LVs, beating last year’s banner result by 9.5%.

The growth came from light-truck production, soaring 30.3% to 175,322 units. FCA and GM witnessed over 30% boosts in LT assembly. Honda was the only manufacturer to see a decrease, falling 33.5% due to CR-V production being moved to its Indiana plant to make room for HR-V assembly.

Mexico car production slowed 6.0% to 170,405 units for the month, but still was up 8.1% year-to-date.

With best-ever monthly totals posted for all six months, Mexico’s first-half tally of 1,926,930 was 15.9% ahead of like-2016 and accounted for 21.5% of the region’s builds.

Overall North America light-vehicle production saw a 0.6% decrease from year-ago with 8,948,151 units, as soaring growth in Mexico balanced slowdowns in the U.S. and Canada.

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