Toyota, Honda and Nissan all saw sales declines in the month of August, WardsAuto data shows, as car deliveries dropped at all three automakers.
Toyota lost 5.0% of its year-ago volume in a month where selling days were equal to August 2015’s 26.
The Toyota brand declined 5.6%, with cars down 12.5% and light trucks rising 2.7%.
Illustrating the growing American preference for light trucks, for the first time in decades the top-selling Toyota in a month wasn’t the Camry. The Camry fell 12.6%, outsold by the RAV4 33,171 to 32,864, making the CUV Toyota’s No.1-selling model in August.
Toyota’s other high-volume cars the Corolla and Prius posted declines of 3.1% and 17.2%.
The Highlander CUV and Land Cruiser and 4Runner SUVs were the only other Toyota light trucks in the black last month.
At Lexus, sales fell 7.6% with all cars down and all CUVs and SUVs up. However, the brand’s best-selling model, the RX midsize CUV, was flat, up 0.8%.
The departing Scion brand registered a 44.5% increase over August 2015, thanks again to the newer iA and iM small cars.
With another down month of sales, Toyota’s year-to-date volume now is 2.9% behind January-August 2015 to 1.625 million units.
Honda Accord Drops
American Honda sales fell 3.8% from August 2015 to 149,571. Honda blames one fewer weekend this August for the decline, which it says also impacted Acura sales negatively. The Honda near-luxury brand lost 7% of year-ago volume.
Honda’s key models of Accord, Civic and CR-V still each sold more than 30,000 units, however the Accord recorded a 26.4% decline.
The new Civic continues to be popular, up 2.4% from year-ago.
The CR-V, which had some months of declines this year, had its second-best month ever in its history thanks to 36,517 deliveries.
Honda’s Fit and HR-V posted hefty increases of 85.1% and 66.0%, respectively, while the Odyssey and Pilot both suffered drops.
The new Ridgeline pickup added 3,437 units to Honda’s August tally.
Acura’s 7% drop was the result of all nameplates falling, save for the just-refreshed MDX, which enjoyed an 8.1% rise.
Honda U.S. sales total 1.095 million through August, a 3.8% increase from year-ago.
Nissan Altima Topped by Rogue
Nissan U.S. sales fell 6.5% in August to 124,638.
Despite a record-setting August performance by Nissan’s light trucks, which rose 19% from August 2015, Nissan-brand sales were down 6.9% due to a 25.4% falloff in cars.
The Altima midsize sedan was overtaken as Nissan’s top-selling model by the Rogue CUV. Rogue’s 32,979 sales were an August record, giving it a 19.2% increase over year-ago.
Altima deliveries dropped 39.2%. It was just the fifth time Rogue has outsold Altima, WardsAuto data shows.
A bright spot in Nissan’s car lineup was the year-old Maxima, which continued its string of gains this summer, up 42.7% last month vs. year-ago.
The launch of the new Titan half-ton large pickup in late August wasn’t enough to put that model in the black. Titan sales slipped 1.6% from August 2015, tallying 1,248 units.
It was a much better month for Nissan’s Frontier midsize pickup, which more than tripled year-ago sales at nearly 10,000 units.
Deliveries eased 1.8% at Nissan’s luxury Infiniti marque. Three of the brand’s nine nameplates, all light trucks, posted increases in August.
The QX50 midsize CUV, refreshed a year ago with a bigger backseat, had a whopping 397.9% gain to 1,200 units.
The QX70 and QX80 rose 3.7% and 16.1%, respectively.
Infiniti’s car lineup slumped, although the Q50 slid just 2.4% to 3,745, keeping it Infiniti’s No.1-selling U.S. model.
Through August, Nissan sales rose 5.4% to 1.055 million from the same period year-ago.
