August 2024 National Auto Sales Report-Sales Up 13%

America suddenly seems obsessed with hybrids, and it is easy to see why.  They get great fuel economy, they are much less expensive than electric vehicles, and there is no range anxiety.  The Kia Niro I review this week is rated at 53-MPG in the city and it is a great car that is fun to drive.

Hybrid sales fueled a 13% increase in sales for this August versus a year ago, as Hyundai/Kia and Ford try to play catchup to Toyota with hybrid vehicles.  To be fair, it is hard to know if that big increase is due to the way the calendar fell with Labor Day being early, or perhaps there were carryover sales reported from July due to the CDK computer hacking saga.  Either way, this is an industry that will take any good news it can get.  My gut feel is if we heard from automakers that only report sales quarterly, the 13% increase would actually be higher than that.  Talking to CarPro Certified Dealers, everyone reported good sales in August, which was a relief since they all had too much inventory-with the exception of Toyota and Lexus that is still having trouble keeping up with strong demand.

Toyota Motor snapped back after declines the past two months versus a year ago, but only due to Lexus sales being up. The Toyota brand was down slightly, mostly due to the stop-sell order plaguing the Grand Highlander. The red-hot Hyundai and Kia dealers set an all-time record for August sales.  Ford was up and reported a 50% increase in hybrid sales over last August, and a 29% increase in electric sales, but given the EV market, not sure that is much to brag about.  New SUV products jumped Lincoln to an almost 50% gain, that was good to see, just not a lot of volume there!

Little Mazda had another great month and is well on the way to hitting its 400,000 sales record for 2024.  Subaru continued on a roll as well.  Honda jumped on the hybrid bandwagon too and posted a hefty 28% increase from a year ago.

Through eight months of 2024, in a close race, Ford leads Toyota year-to-date by 50,000 vehicles.  This is one race to watch over the next 4 months.

In good news for people in the car market, between higher incentives and deeper dealer discounts, the average transaction price of new vehicles this August versus a year ago was down almost $1900, that is a huge fall, and reinforces what I keep telling you on the air that there are bargains to be had.

August 2024 U.S. Auto Sales  

Here are your winners for August 2024 versus August 2023 from the automakers that report monthly, we’ll see full numbers after the sales close of September: