Top 10 Best-Selling Cars: May 2016
CARS.COM — What goes up must come down. After months of steady gains, new-car sales in May fell 6.4 percent with the top seven automakers reporting. If that holds true for the rest of the industry, it would represent the largest percentage tumble in 69 months by our tally of Automotive News’ monthly sales tables. The last time sales fell more than this was August 2010, a hangover month from the government’s Cash for Clunkers program. That was even before Snapchat, kids.
Related: Top 10 Best-Selling Cars: April 2016
Six of the top 10 best-sellers fell in May. The Camry returned to the top non-pickup truck slot even as sales fell 15.8 percent — and that’s despite higher year-over-year purchase incentives in May, according to Automotive News. At the other end, the Ford Escape returned to the top 10 list for the first time since September 2015. April’s No. 10 car, the Nissan Altima, fell off the list with a 15.5 percent sales drop despite higher purchase incentives.
Check out May’s top 10 best-sellers:
Shoppers spurned some of the largest automakers in May, with Toyota and GM sales down 9.6 percent and 18 percent, respectively. Among the largest seven automakers, only Hyundai-Kia and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles saw an uptick.
Unsurprisingly, most major non-luxury segments fell. Consumers sent subcompact, compact and midsize cars to double-digit declines — expected, given still-cheap gas continues to stoke SUV sales. SUV segments were a mixed bag, with subcompact and midsize crossovers up in May, as well as full-size truck-based SUVs. In between them, compact and large crossovers fell.
Perhaps shoppers traded the latter segment for minivans. With summer-camp season right around the corner, the sliding-door crowd bumped sales 17.1 percent in May. A lot of that came from FCA’s outgoing Chrysler Town & Country and Dodge Grand Caravan, both up versus an abysmal year-ago sales month for the minivan twins.
Midsize pickups gained 6.5 percent but full-size pickups fell 3.1 percent. Despite a strong new-home construction market coming into the month — a big component of truck sales — shoppers drove May totals down for every full-size model save the Ford F-Series.
But don’t call it a crash just yet. Stephanie Brinley, a senior analyst at IHS Automotive, noted in an email to reporters that the lower results were expected: “The outlook for the year remains for another record year,” Brinley wrote, adding that “nothing in May’s results suggests otherwise.”
