Toyota Slips in July, Honda and Nissan Rise

A 6.5% decline in Lexus deliveries pulled Toyota’s July U.S. sales down 1.3% on a volume and daily-selling-rate basis (26 days this year and last).

However, Toyota Div. itself didn’t help matters, with a 7.8% drop in car sales tempering a 7.3% increase in light-truck sales.

Toyota Div. again tallied record CUV and SUV sales for the second month in a row. CUV and SUV volume of 57,999 units marked a 13.2% gain on July 2015 numbers.

The compact RAV4 CUV outsold the compact Corolla car for only the sixth time in two years per WardsAuto data.

RAV4 volume of 31,871, a record for the month of July, marked a 19.3% increase from July 2015.

The Highlander midsize CUV’s 15,213 sales also set a July record and represented a 19.5% increase from July 2015.

All non-discontinued Toyota-brand CUVs and SUVs posted gains in July, including the Land Cruiser, up a whopping 57.7%, but on fewer than 300 deliveries.

The Tacoma compact pickup and Tundra fullsize pickup dipped last month, down 2.7% and 0.4%, respectively.

Toyota cars continued to slump. All models save for the Corolla, up 4.9%, were in the red. The Camry saw a rare double-digit percentage drop (11.2%), while the Prius continued its 2016 decline, down 29.2% in July. The new liftback body style was off 11.4% last month, Toyota says.

Scion sales were up 66.2% in July thanks again to the year-old iA and iM small cars. The brand officially winds down with the start of the ’17 model year.

Cars were the culprit for Lexus, too, falling 15.2%. However, its light-truck gain wasn’t as strong as sister-brand Toyota’s, up just 2.0% and leading to the 6.5% total brand loss.

The ES sedan was the rare bright spot in otherwise lackluster Lexus car sales, up 1.0%.

The Lexus GX SUV was the only Lexus utility losing volume from July 2015, down 17.9%.

RX sales rose 3.1% and NX sales were up 8.1%, but it was the low-volume LX large SUV that recorded the biggest gain of all, rising 48.9%.

Honda CR-V, Nissan Rogue Hot

Honda posted a 4.4% increase in U.S. sales in July, netting what it says was a record July volume of 152,799. But unlike in recent months, Honda’s rise can be credited to CUVs, not cars.

Civic sales remained strong, up 5.8% in July, but it was a resurgent CR-V compact CUV that had the bigger spike. CR-V sales rose 13.3% in July from year-ago, to a RAV4-besting 36,017 and an all-time monthly record.

The Pilot midsize CUV was up 8.0% to 10,350 deliveries and HR-V subcompact CUV sales rose 25.1% to 7,394.

The new Ridgeline tallied 3,518 sales, its first full month on the market.

Light-truck volume of 68,518 for the Honda brand was an all-time monthly record, the automaker says.

While Accord volume fell 7.4% last month, mirroring similar declines in midsize sedans across the industry, the Fit B-car posted a rare 2016 increase, up 25.4%.

At Acura, sales were down 8.3% as the brand struggles to get traction for its cars. It also says it experienced “inventory issues” in ramping up production of the new ’17 MDX CUV.

Nevertheless, MDX sales declined just 1.5%, one of its lowest losses in recent months.

The TLX, Acura’s best-selling car, lost 11.5% of its year-ago volume. All other Acura car models also were down, as was the RDX CUV.

Nissan sales rose 1.2% in July, with the Nissan brand’s 1.7% climb offsetting a 4.7% falloff at Infiniti. Nissan-brand sales of 122,530 were a July record, the automaker says.

The Altima D-car took a rare 2016 plunge, down 26.3%, while the Sentra compact sedan was flat, up 0.1%.

As with Toyota and Honda, Nissan compact CUV sales were impressive. Rogue deliveries rose 32.8% in July and its 33,298 units topped the RAV4 while setting an all-time monthly record.

Other Nissans posting strong gains included the Frontier midsize pickup (72.7%) and the Maxima large car (43.5%).

While volume remained much lower than the competition’s, the Titan large pickup saw a 1.5% increase in July with 1,143 sold. The new Titan half-ton pickup, expected to make up the bulk of total Titan sales vs. the near-heavy-duty model, is set to launch this month.

The recently refreshed Infiniti QX50 midsize CUV, as well as the large QX80 SUV, were the only models in the black for the luxury brand in July.

Infiniti QX50 sales spiked 647.3% on 1,360 deliveries while QX80 sales rose 17.8% to 1,267.

Through July, Toyota sales were down 2.5% at 1.41 million units, Honda sales were up 5.1% at 945,154 and Nissan sales increased 7.3% to 930,589.

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