North American LV Production Declined in July

July North America light-vehicle production decreased 10.3% year-over-year to 1,057,858 units, while several plants took extended summer breaks. Still, it was only five years ago that the region’s total topped one million units for the first time and it has yet to fall back below that mark.

Car production absorbed much of the slowdown, tumbling 23.6% to 342,778 builds. Light-truck output slipped 2.1% to 715,080 in July, but was still 3.6% ahead of 7-month 2016.

Mexico continued to outperform the region, soaring to a best-ever July total of 292,019 units, and beating year-ago’s record by 3.6%.

Toyota increased production 11.9% to 6,561, FCA grew an estimated 12.4% to 54,147 and Kia soared 90.0% to 21,900. However, Ford slowed 30.5% to 21,064 due to summer shut-downs and Nissan pulled back production 12.4% to 51,975.

With seven straight monthly records, Mexico’s year-to-date tally sky-rocketed 14.3% ahead of like-2016 with 2,221,773 LVs.

Plants in the U.S. slowed 14.4% to 654,145 light vehicles in July. GM output plunged an estimated 20.5% to 148,980, due to the Lordstown, OH, and Lansing, MI plants closing for several weeks. FCA production fell an estimated 13.4% to 91,303 LVs, with only 60 car assemblies compared to 5,742 last year.

Toyota was down 28.0% to 61,594 units, Ford fell 4.4% to 117,617 and Hyundai tumbled 32.8% to 16,200. Honda dipped 11.2% to 72,628 units, despite increased (+22.9%) light-truck production.

Through July, U.S. production slipped 6.0% behind same-period 2016 to 6,455,859 units to align with slowing sales and bloated inventory.

It was a sluggish month in Canada, with production falling 16.0% behind year-ago to 111,694 LVs. Ford (-30.53%) and Toyota (-9.71%) saw big declines. Honda was the sole bright spot, ramping up 11.7% to 26,652 LVs for the month.

Year-to-date, automakers in Canada built 1,320,984 units, lagging 3.7% behind 2016’s 7-month total of 1,371,324.

Overall, North America assembly slipped 1.8% to 9,998,616 units through July.

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