North American Light-Vehicle Production Hits 13-Year High in April
Two of the top manufactures saw year-over-year declines, but many automakers achieved record-high monthly results.
North American automakers built 1,492,113 light vehicles in April, 5.3% above like-2014, and a 13-year high for the month.
Car output rose 8.7% to 619,122 units. Year-to-date, production was up 3.1%.
Light trucks saw a smaller gain, 3.0%, but reached a best-ever-April result of 872,991 vehicles. Over the first four months of this year, light-truck builds were 2.5% higher than in 2014.
FCA posted its first year-over-year decline of 2015, slipping 3.1%. General Motors also had a small drop in output with a 0.6% downtick.
Ford helped keep the market average up, boosting production 16.5% above year ago. Its year-to-date total was still 1.5% below like-2014, but WardsAuto forecasts the automaker will finish 2015 5.5% higher than 2014.
Toyota, Honda and Subaru posted year-on-year gains over 5%, resulting in each manufacturer reaching record-high April output.
Other manufacturers with all-time highs for April included Nissan, BMW and Mercedes.
Light-vehicle production in the U.S. came to 1,033,527 units for the month, up 5.7% from prior-year. Year-to-date, assemblies were 2.2% above same-period 2014.
Canadian LV output fell 8.9% in April to 176,626. For the first four months of 2015, the result was down 5.5%.
Mexico continued a 16-month streak of gains over the prior year with 14.7% growth from same-month 2014. The January-April total was 10.9% above year-ago.
North American LV production through April was 5,748,623 units, up 2.8% from year-ago.
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