June U.S. Auto Sales

U.S. auto sales appear to be improving slightly! They are down from the last year but are only down 28% vs down 39% for the month of May. decline. It appears that the U.S. based automakers are having a rebound in sales with the exception of Chrysler. Sales were the best they have been since the summer of 2008....with a annual run rate of approximately 10 million cars.

Ford and GM sold more cars in June and cut the downward spiral sales for the month. During April, Ford and GM sales were down 11.2% and 33% respectively. An interesting fact is that GM is currently in bankruptcy and the bankruptcy has not impacted sales badly. Meanwhile, Chrysler who just came out of bankruptcy was down 42%.

• Chrysler down 42%

• Mazda down 42%

• Mitsubishi down 42%

• General Motors down 33%

• Toyota down 32%

• Honda down 30%

• Mercedes down 23%

• Nissan down 23%

• Volkswagen down 23%

• BMW down 20%

• Hyundai down 20%

• Ford down 11%

• Kia down 5%

• Volvo up 1%

• Subaru up 3%

Ford seems to be the beneficiary of increased sales lately. It appears that new products were the reason behind the sales increase over May. The Ford Fusion, Ford Flex and the company's hybrids set sales records.

Ford's Fusion set a record of 18,561 cars breaking into the top three mid-size sedan market for the second month since July 2002. The Ford Fusion and Mercury Milan have the best predicted reliability among all mid-size sedans. The Japanese brands have dominated the mid-size segment with the Toyota Camry and the Honda Accord.

June sales were up at a fairly decent run rate of 10 million cars annually. So, it appears that consumers had more faith in the future to spend money on high ticket items.

An interesting anomaly is that sales of Japanese brands continue with the downward spiral meanwhile U.S. manufacturers seem to be improving. We will have to monitor to see if that is a trend that will continue!