Hyundai, Kia, Subaru Rise in May

Hyundai U.S. sales rose 2.0% in May to 66,121 units, paced by its highest monthly CUV sales ever, the automaker says.

Collectively, Hyundai CUVs (Kona, Tucson and Santa Fe) rose 27% last month to 36,620, with all three models hitting a new May peak, per the automaker’s numbers.

Hyundai will begin retailing a fourth CUV, the 3-row Palisade, this month.

Retail sales for the Korean brand grew 4% in May and fleet sales declined 5%, although it doesn’t provide raw figures for either sector.

There were mixed results among car nameplates.

The Veloster small sport coupe, redesigned last year, rose, as did the Accent subcompact, but Hyundai’s core car models, the Elantra compact sedan and hatch and Sonata midsize sedan, were down, as was the Ioniq green-car lineup.

Sales of Hyundai’s low-volume Nexo hydrogen fuel-cell CUV (19 units) were flat with May 2018.

Through May, Hyundai’s U.S. sales were up 1.7% to 269,126.

Sister-brand Kia posted a 4.7% increase in its sales last month, boasting it was its best month so far in 2019.

Kia says it sold 60,062 units, with 10,713 coming from the Soul small car, which is redesigned for the ’20 model year.

The good performance by the Soul, plus the 6,273 sales added by the new Telluride 3-row large CUV, offset declines for nearly all other Kia models last month.

The Kia Rio subcompact, K900 large luxury sedan and Sportage small CUV were in the black, while the Forte compact car, Optima midsize sedan, Cadenza large sedan, Stinger sport sedan, Sedona minivan, Sorento midsize CUV and Niro electrified CUVs were in the red.

Through May, Kia U.S. sales were up 4.7% to 248,043.

Subaru topped Kia, but lagged Hyundai, slotting in between with 63,972 sales in May, good for a 6.4% increase on year-ago.

Subaru says May 2019 was its best May ever in terms of volume.

“Coming off of a record-breaking April, we are excited to continue the momentum in May with a milestone 90th month of consecutive sales increases,” Tom Doll, president and CEO-Subaru of America, says in a statement.

As at other brands, CUVs set May sales records, with best-ever results in the month for the midsize Outback and compact Forester CUVs.

Outback sales rose 7.9% to 18,017, while Forester deliveries grew 10.3% to 16,028.

Subaru says its Ascent large CUV, not on sale in May 2018, accounted for 7,509 of its May 2019 volume.

However, all was not rosy. The Crosstrek small CUV slipped 19.7% and car sales suffered hefty setbacks, with the Impreza compact sedan and hatch, BRZ sports car and WRX/STI sport sedans and hatches losing a quarter to a third of their May 2018 volume; the Legacy midsize sedan slipped 13.5%.

Subaru U.S. sales through May were up 5.7% to 278,014.