North America Production Down 6.3% in March

Ending the first quarter of 2018, North America light-vehicle production slowed 6.3% in March to 1,559,538.

Automakers in Canada pulled back production 14.8% to 185,343 light vehicles, accounting for about 12% of the region’s builds.

Toyota tumbled 22.6% to 45,117 units, with Corolla and RAV4 output falling 24.7% and 16.4% respectively. Honda was down 10.6% to 38,082 and Ford was flat at 23,400.

Through Q1, Canada production fell 11.1% behind like-2017 with 529,679 LVs. It was the lowest first-quarter volume since 2010’s 511,217.

Output also was slow in the U.S., slipping 3.1% to 1,041,356 units. Cars dropped 9.0% and light trucks came in even at 771,398.

Hyundai production was down 39.2% to 21,500 and sister-brand Kia dropped 28.9% to 21,243. Nissan (-14.5%), Subaru (-21.4%) and Toyota (-6.7%) also saw big declines.

In contrast, FCA boosted output 22.7% to 141,182 units and Volkswagen was up an estimated 18.1% to 10,000.

U.S. production through March was down 2.8% from 3-months 2017 to 2,865,397.

Output from Mexico fell below year-ago for the first time this year, down 10.3% to 332,839 LVs. The 33.2% boost in light-truck builds to 204,692 units was not enough to balance the 41.0% drop in car output.

Results varied among manufacturers in Mexico. Kia soared 42.0% to 21,200, thanks to ramped-up Rio production, while Nissan fell 31.7% to 59,192. Ford output shrank 40.9% to 25,512, and FCA expanded an estimated 13.0% to 54,600.

After two months of growth and one slow month, Mexico’s Q1 total of 964,201 inched 0.3% ahead of same-period 2017.

The region overall decreased production 3.3% in Q1 to 4,359,277 LVs, compared to year-ago’s 4,506,495. The loss came primarily from car lines, which tumbled 21.5% to just shy of 30% of the region’s builds, while light-truck output ticked up 2.1% to 1,096,950.

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