Toyota and Honda Down, Nissan Rises in June

Toyota sales fell 9.2% in June in the U.S. on an adjusted basis, as the automaker says it is swimming against the industry tide, having too much car inventory for the current market and not enough in-demand light trucks.

“Our truck mix relative to the industry is about 5-6 points behind – we’re trying to sell cars in a truck industry,” Paul Holdridge, vice president-sales for Toyota Div. tells media in a conference call to discuss June results.

Toyota Div. saw a 13.4% decline in car sales based on daily selling rate, while Toyota Div. truck deliveries fell 5.9%.

Every Toyota-brand passenger car was in the red in June.

The Camry, the U.S. auto industry’s best-selling model, fell 16.3% behind June 2015 with 32,561 deliveries, while the Prius continues to struggle, despite an all-new sedan variant.

Prius sales fell 29.6% on a DSR basis, with the sedan body style down 14.2%, Toyota says.

Despite weak light-truck deliveries, the RAV4 continues its upward climb to higher volume. The midsize CUV, now the segment’s best-seller had its best June yet with 27,365 deliveries, Holdridge says.

The large Land Cruiser SUV was the only other Toyota-brand light truck in positive territory in June, up an adjusted 31.5%.

In its final months, the Scion brand continues to outperform year-ago, thanks to the relatively new iA and iM small cars, whose volume is offsetting declining sales of the xB, tC and FR-S.

Scion sales rose 54.8% in June. The brand will be dissolved with the start of the ’17 model year. The iA, iM and FR-S sports car will become Toyota models. Other Scion cars will be discontinued.

At Toyota’s luxury Lexus marque, sales fell 5.1% on a DSR basis.

Cars too were the culprit at Lexus, although it did see an increase in light trucks unlike at sister brand Toyota.

Lexus car sales were down 17.2% with only the ES sedan up vs. year-ago, by 2.6%.

But every Lexus utility vehicle posted an increase save for the GX, down 3.0%.

The 2-year-old Lexus NX compact CUV posted an 11.7% jump, and Steve Hearne, Lexus U.S. sales vice president, says the vehicle’s median buyer age is 15 years younger than Lexus’s RX midsize CUV.

Both Holdridge and Hearne see promise in the year’s second half, when the industry and both of their respective brands typically perform best.

“Economic fundamentals like continued growth in GDP, positive labor data, (and) low fuel prices…(make us) very optimistic we’ll see a solid second half in the second half of this year,” Holdridge says, while adding Toyota is working to get more production out of its light-truck assembly plants.

Nissan Outsells Honda

Toyota’s top Japanese rivals in the U.S., Honda and Nissan, saw differing results.

Total Honda U.S. sales were flat in June, down 0.8% to 138,715 on a DSR basis, as a slight 3.0% uptick at the Honda brand couldn’t offset the 29.7% plunge in Acura deliveries.

Most Honda models posted increases, including the Pilot (14.5%) and low-volume CR-Z (10.8%), but it was the new second-generation Ridgeline midsize pickup that provided the bulk of June’s momentum at the brand, adding 2,472 units to Honda’s June tally.

Accord, Civic and CR-V sales were in the black, while the now year-old HR-V had an 18.6% loss compared with the same month year-ago.

Acura’s plunge can be blamed on the gap between the departing ’16 RDX and MDX and arriving ’17 versions of those CUVs.

Acura’s best-selling models, the RDX posted a 31.7% DSR loss and the MDX fell 22.1%.

As at many luxury brands, cars continue to be a problem for Acura, as the ILX, TLX and RLX sedans lost a third to half of their year-ago volume.

Nissan overtook Honda as the No.2 best-selling Japanese automaker in the U.S. for the fourth month this year, with 140,553 sales, good for an 8.8% DSR increase vs. year-ago.

Models contributing to Nissan’s climb include the year-old Maxima sedan (17.3%), refreshed Sentra compact car (15.8%) and Rogue midsize CUV (21.0%). The latter came within 1,229 of unseating the Altima midsize sedan as Nissan’s best-selling model last month.

Despite low fuel prices, the fuel-sipping Versa subcompact car posted a 38.6% June DSR hike, but low fuel prices didn’t work in the favor of the Titan fullsize pickup.

Nissan’s newly redesigned truck fell 25.4% on an adjusted basis.

At Infiniti, sales rose 6.5% thanks to a 289.5% hike in QX50 deliveries. The recently redesigned CUV, which has a bigger backseat than its predecessor, is up 502.2% in first-half 2016 vs. first-half 2015.

Sales increased for Infiniti’s other CUVs/SUVs – the QX60, QX70 and QX80 – offsetting declining results for the brand’s cars.

Through June, Toyota volume is down 2.7% vs. first-half 2015 to 1.2 million units, while first-half Honda volume stood at 792,355, up 5.2%; Nissan has sold 798,114 units in the year’s first six months, an 8.4% rise over FH 2015.

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