US auto sales boomed last month as US$3 billion in government incentives drove sharp gains for Hyundai Motor Co and Ford Motor Co but failed to provide a boost for General Motors Co (GM) in its first full month outside bankruptcy.
Ford reported a 17 percent jump in monthly sales on Tuesday and the success of the US government’s “cash for clunkers” trade-in incentives pushed overall industry sales to the first year-on-year increase in 21 months.
South Korea’s Hyundai posted a 47 percent increase as sales of its Elantra sedan more than doubled.
PHOTO: REUTERS
The US government incentive program also helped Honda post a 10 percent sales gain, while Toyota Motor Corp sales were up 6 percent.
The two US vehicle makers to have emerged from government-sponsored bankruptcies — GM and Chrysler — lost market share during last month’s sales bonanza.
GM sales dropped 20 percent, while Chrysler was off 15 percent. Nissan Motor Co sales fell almost 3 percent from record levels of a year earlier.
Meanwhile, auto sales rose in France and Italy and stabilized in Spain on the success of similar government-backed sales incentives, data released on Tuesday showed.
The now-exhausted US “clunkers” program, which was inspired by the programs in France and other European markets, drove a rush into dealerships in July and last month.
More than 690,000 vehicles were scrapped in the US for taxpayer-funded credits of up to US$4,500 as consumers took advantage to drop gas-guzzling trucks and sport utility vehicles.
On an annualized basis, industrywide US sales topped 14 million units, Autodata said.
That was up from 13.6 million a year earlier but still far below the 16 million range that had been seen as the bottom for the market until 2007.
The winners in the US incentive program were Asian automakers and Ford, which benefited from a stronger lineup of smaller cars and crossover vehicles, analysts said.
The result has been a more evenly matched battle for sales among the major automakers in the US market that threatens to upset long-held market share rankings.
Hyundai and its affiliate Kia Motors Corp now command a combined 7.5 percent market share, making them larger on that basis than Nissan Motor Co.
GM saw its share of sales of its core brands — Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick and GMC — drop to 16.3 percent of the US market last month. That lagged Toyota’s US market share of 17.8 percent for the month.
“I think perception hurt GM,” said Jessica Caldwell, director of industry analysis at Edmunds.com. “People didn’t really see GM as a place to turn to when they needed to buy a fuel-efficient vehicle.”
GM sales chief Mark LaNeve said the US incentive program had clearly benefited Asian automakers more than GM.
“If it would have been a cash for capable trucks [program], we would have killed them, but it wasn’t,” LaNeve told reporters and analysts. “It was designed for smaller cars and smaller crossovers, and although we’re gaining ground quick, they still have more volume in that area.”
Chrysler, now under control of Italy’s Fiat, said it had lost potential sales when dealers ran short on some models after it shut down all of its production during a bankruptcy process that ended in June.
Chrysler responded with a continued program of discounts of up to US$4,500 in rebates on select models this month.
Meanwhile, Ford, the only US automaker to avoid a federally sponsored bankruptcy, posted its second consecutive monthly sales gain and said signs of a recovery in pickup truck demand pointed toward a broader recovery in the economy.
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