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If you reject all other signs of optimism emanating from America's automotive industry, make sure you pay attention to this one. Last month's six best-selling utility vehicles - let's just call them SUVs - were all more popular in January 2012 than they were in January 2011. And no, that's not the norm. 2011's year end best-selling SUV list showed two of the top six with year-over-year declines. But 2012 began well for those two, the Honda CR-V and the Toyota RAV4, just as it did for the outgoing Chevrolet Equinox, Jeep Grand Cherokee, Ford Explorer, Nissan Rogue, and Ford Escape.Speaking of the Escape, no year-over-year increase is perhaps more notable. The current Ford Escape is seemingly decades old and, if only consumers would wait, it's about to be much, much better. Yet Escape sales are on the rise.That said, Ford ended 2011 pointing out that the Escape was America's favourite SUV, but 2012 did not begin the same way. Not surprisingly, Honda CR-V sales are booming. Honda just launched the all new CR-V, beating the new Escape to the punch by mere weeks. Expect to see the two battling it out for top spot over the coming months, maybe even the coming years. It's hard to imagine a vehicle with the fuel-guzzling ability of the Jeep Grand Cherokee, with the price of a Grand Cherokee, topping the popularity of four-cylinder utility vehicles which enter the market closer to $20,000 than $30,000.Sales figures for every nameplate currently on sale in North America can be found by accessing the dropdown menu at the top right of this page. That includes sales figures for the ten vehicles you see below, America's best-selling SUVs from January 2012.
Early images and test drives presented us with one question: did the Toyota Camry evolve enough to maintain its consistent popularity in the U.S. marketplace? Er... yeah. it did.Camry sales jumped 56% from January 2011, a period you might remember because of what happened to the Camry. It was unseated as America's best-selling car for the second consecutive month. It was the second-best-selling car in America a year ago, behind another Toyota. From second best at the beginning of last year, a position the Camry is not that familiar with, the midsize Toyota reported a 56% improvement in U.S. sales. That was enough to beat the new second-best-selling car, Nissan's Altima, by nearly 5000 sales. Yes, Altima sales needed to be 22% stronger.And what of another former best seller? GoodCarBadCar no longer includes sales of the Crosstour in the Honda Accord's total. It matters little. The Accord would have moved up only two positions, barely beating out the Sonata and Focus with 14,580 sales. Crosstour sales were down 41% in January 2012. The good news at Honda was Civic-related. The most popular compact car in America in January was indeed Honda's Civic, sales of which jumped 46%. That increase is nothing compared to what happened north of the border. Civic sales in Canada jumped 333% in January.On all but a few accounts, the U.S. sales report coming out of General Motors today was bad. Car sales at Chevrolet were more than decent, however. The Impala, Cruze, and Malibu beat all other American cars, including the much talked about surge at Chrysler. All three of these Chevy cars fared better this January than last, as well.Find monthly and yearly sales figures for all these cars and for any other vehicle currently on sale in North America by accessing the dropdown menu at the top right of this page. Nine manufacturers built the 20 cars you see listed below. They were the 20 best-selling cars in America in January 2012. Rank | Best-Selling Car | January 2012 | %
Change |
#1 | Toyota Camry | 27,295 | + 55.9% |
#2 | Nissan Altima | 22,357 | + 35.9% |
#3 | Honda Civic | 21,883 | + 49.5% |
#4 | Toyota Corolla/Matrix | 17,988 | - 12.6% |
#5 | Chevrolet Impala | 16,009 | + 5.4% |
#6 | Chevrolet Cruze | 15,049 | + 10.4% |
#7 | Chevrolet Malibu | 14,676 | + 4.1% |
#8 | Hyundai Sonata | 14,489 | + 9.3% |
#9 | Ford Focus | 14,400 | + 59.8% |
#10 | Honda Accord | 13,659 | + 1.5% |
#11 | Ford Fusion | 13,614 | - 5.1% |
#12 | Toyota Prius/Prius V | 11,555 | + 8.7% |
| * Prius Liftback | 8500 | - 20.1% |
| * Prius V | 3055 | ----- |
#13 | Volkswagen Jetta | 10,962 | - 4.3% |
#14 | Hyundai Elantra | 10,900 | + 12.8% |
#15 | Nissan Versa | 9418 | + 8.5% |
#16 | Mazda 3 | 9200 | + 83.4% |
#17 | Kia Optima | 8814 | + 131% |
#18 | Kia Soul | 8091 | + 5.1% |
#19 | Subaru Outback | 7412 | + 6.2% |
#20 | Nissan Sentra | 7066 | - 25.9% |
Source: Manufacturers & ANDC Red font indicates year-over-year declining sales * Prius breakdown by variantAccord sales are Accord sedan and coupe only, no Crosstour, only 921 of which were sold anyhow.Related From GoodCarBadCar.netTop 20 Best-Selling Cars In America - January 2013Top 20 Best-Selling Cars In America - February 2012Top 25 Best-Selling Cars In America - 2011 Year EndU.S. Auto Sales By Brand - January 2012Top 20 Best-Selling Cars In America - December 2011Top 10 Best-Selling Cars In America - January 2011Top 30 Best-Selling Vehicles In America - January 2012
There's nothing unusual about seeing the Ford F-Series atop any leaderboard. Indeed, Ford is starting off 2012 by sticking with what's commonly known: the F-Series pickup range, America's best-selling truck in 2011, was the best-selling truck in America in January 2012.It hasn't been so normal of late to see gains being made by Toyota products, but January was a different story for most Toyota Motor Corp. products. General Motors, on the other hand, reported year-over-year declines at all four brands. Most good news coming out of GM in January related to the company's passenger cars. The Impala, Cruze, and Malibu fared better in January 2012 than a year prior. Moreover, they were America's three-best-selling American cars. The Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra hung on to their normal positions, second and fourth among pickup trucks, but slid noticeably, taking GM with them.There'll be more on pickup trucks in the coming days when GoodCarBadCar adds to this by tabling and charting every other pickup truck's January 2012 performance. For now, take a good long look at this U.S. best-selling trucks list. It does a fairly good job at symbolizing January's industry sales data. Always check the dropdown menu at the top right of this screen to access monthly and yearly sales data on any model currently on sale in North America.
The January 2012 edition of Canada's Auto Sales By Brand post got underway with reports from Ford of Canada and Chrysler Canada. Early signs suggested a strong showing by Canada's automobile industry in the first month of 2012 as not a single one of the first 20+ brands to report posted anything close to a less successful start to 2012 than there was in 2011.The Chrysler brand's 204% year-over-year increase is most notable. Sales of the company's midsize 200 jumped to 619 in January. 44 of those sales can be attributed to the 200 Convertible. Why Canadians are buying convertibles in the dead of winter is a question that remains to be answered, but the real question relates to the subject at hand: why is anybody buying the Chrysler 200 Convertible, in particular?That's off topic, of course. 45% of Blue Oval sales were F-Series pickup trucks. Ford's best-selling car was the Focus, sales of which reached 1374. After the F-Series, Ford's next-best-selling model was the Escape, 2209 of which found buyers in January 2012. Ford was the best-selling auto brand in Canada in January 2012, just as it was throughout 2011. Yes, as a brand, Ford was number one. But it was Chrysler Canada, with 7116 sales from Dodge, 321 from Fiat, and 9147 from three other brands, that ended January on top with 17.3% market share. Ford Canada's market share was 15.7%. General Motors ended January with 13.6% of the market, nearly 2.5 percentage points down from what GM accomplished in December.Subaru, Toyota, Nissan, BMW, and Kia all recorded their best January ever. Subaru sold 787 Imprezas. Toyota Camry sales reached 1007. Nissan GT-R sales were up 400%. To five, in total. BMW's 35% year-over-year improvement came before the new Good 12-winning 3-Series sedan arrived at dealers.Stay with us throughout the day for a look at the U.S. Auto Sales By Brand post and January's best-selling cars, trucks, and SUVs in America.
Significant year-over-year sales increases were expected in January 2012, and sales releases did not disappoint. Early results had Chrysler Group LLC reporting its 22nd consecutive month of year-over-year gains. Hyundai sales were up 15%. All four General Motors brands were down in January, and Lincoln also failed to put up respectable numbers, but Ford improved 8%.As the numbers continued to pour in, the picture became clearer. Kia did its usual thing, a 28% increase is nothing to sneeze at. But Kia wasn't the industry pacesetter in January. Mazda sales jumped 68%m Volkswagen jumped 48%, Jeep climbed 37%, and Chrysler - yes, that Chrysler, the one with three models - posted an 81% boost over January 2011 numbers.Niche brands like Bentley, Maserati, smart, and Land Rover also reported huge gains. By units, these amount to very little difference when the industry is viewed as a whole. But the Chrysler Group's 31,031 extra sales, only 1911 of which can be attributed to the Fiat 500 which wasn't on sale in America last January, played a huge role. The Ford Motor Company 9313 extra sales nearly undid the damage done by GM's fall, a 10,935-unit fall. The 11.4% improvement in the auto industry in January 2012 is notable for more than what it did for Kia, Chrysler, and Volkswagen salesmen. The seasonally adjusted annual sales rate climbed to 14.2 million. That's nothing compared with 2002's 16.8 million sales, but it's some way better than 2011's 12.8 million and a huge improvement on 2009's 10.4 million.The news gets better. We also found out that automakers made more money on each and every automobile they sold in January. Barclays Capital said that incentives on GM vehicles dropped 21% from January 2011 along with a drop of 10% at Chrysler and 17% at Toyota.Stick with GoodCarBadCar.net throughout the day for best seller lists, then follow along throughout the month for segment by segment breakdowns. You can always find detailed sales figures for any model on sale in North America by accessing the dropdown menu at the top right of this page.Updated 02.01.2012 @ 3:51 PM AST Rank | Automaker | January 2012 | %
Change |
#1 | Ford | 131,173 | + 8.3% |
#2 | Chevrolet | 123,864 | - 1.2% |
#3 | Toyota | 108,371 | + 8.7% |
#4 | Honda | 74,628 | + 9.3% |
#5 | Nissan | 72,517 | + 12.5% |
#6 | Hyundai | 42,694 | + 14.7% |
#7 | Kia | 35,517 | + 27.8% |
#8 | Jeep | 31,710 | + 37.4% |
#9 | Dodge | 31,454 | + 29.4% |
#10 | Volkswagen | 27,209 | + 47.9% |
#11 | GMC | 24,966 | - 9.7% |
#12 | Mazda | 23,996 | + 68.2% |
#13 | Subaru | 22,807 | + 20.9% |
#14 | Mercedes-Benz | 21,230 | + 22.9% |
#15 | Ram | 18,470 | + 41.9% |
#16 | BMW | 16,405 | + 3.1% |
#17 | Chrysler | 17,604 | + 81.4% |
#18 | Lexus | 12,274 | - 4.6% |
#19 | Buick | 10,208 | - 23.1% |
#20 | Audi | 9354 | + 19.7% |
#21 | Cadillac | 8924 | - 29.1% |
#22 | Acura | 8381 | + 5.3% |
#23 | Infiniti | 6796 | - 8.2% |
#24 | Lincoln | 5121 | - 7.9% |
#25 | Mitsubishi | 4711 | - 17.6% |
#26 | Volvo | 4461 | + 4.3% |
#27 | Scion | 3535 | + 7.9% |
#28 | Mini | 3334 | + 21.2% |
#29 | Land Rover | 3205 | + 41.1% |
#30 | Porsche | 2550 | + 6.3% |
#31 | Fiat | 1911 | ----- |
#32 | Suzuki | 1505 | - 41.3% |
#33 | Jaguar | 985 | + 5.3% |
#34 | smart | 496 | + 38.5% |
#35 | Maserati | 154 | + 35.1% |
#36 | Bentley | 118 | + 43.9% |
#37 | Saab | ----- | - 100% |
Source: Automakers & Automotive News Data CenterRed font indicates declining year-over-year sales, bold indicates a so-called premium brandGCBC now lists Ram separately from Dodge, as Chrysler does. Combined, Dodge/Ram sld 49,924 vehicles, enough to rank sixth.Related From GoodCarBadCar.netU.S. Auto Sales Brand Rankings - January 2013U.S. Auto Sales By Brand - February 2012U.S. Auto Sales By Brand - 2011 Year EndU.S. Auto Sales By Brand - December 2011U.S. Auto Sales By Brand - January 2011U.S. Auto Brand Market Share - January 2012
