North American Light-Vehicle Production Down 1% in August

North American automakers produced 1,423,078 light vehicles in August, 1.0% below the same-month last year.

Nissan’s monthly output was 11.8% above prior-year, at 158,083. Nissan was the most improved major automaker over the first eight months of this year, up 20.0%.

Honda had a best-ever August result with 161,237 LVs, beating last year’s number by 0.1%. Year-to-date, the automaker’s production was down 0.8%.

Subaru, BMW, Mercedes and Tesla also had record-high August output, according to WardsAuto estimates.

The Detroit Three built 749,024 LVs, a 4.0% drop from last year. Ford posted a major decline, falling 16.4% to 289,910 units. Chrysler builds rose 4.6%, and GM had a smaller gain of 1.4%.

Monthly light-truck production showed a 17th consecutive year-over-year gain, growing 1.6% to 819,593 units. Through August, light-truck output was 11.0% higher than year-ago.

The number of cars built in the month fell 4.2% from last year, to 603,485.

U.S. plants made 982,776 LVs last month, up just 0.9%. January-August production totaled 7,610,519, 6.0% above same-period 2013.

Mexico production rose 4.7% to 269,181 units. Year-to-date, LV builds totaled 2,112,773, a 6.9% increase from like-2013.

In Canada, output declined 16.7% from year-ago, to 171,121 units. Year-to-date output of 1,513,644 units was 2.1% below prior-year.

North American light-vehicle production through August was 11,236,936 units, up 5.0% from year-ago.

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