U.S. Car Sales Drop 7%

Demand for passenger vehicles in the U.S. sagged 7% to 1.42 million units in July. Results dragged down the annualized sales pace to 16.7 million from 17.8 million in July 2016, according to Autodata Corp.

Sales of conventional cars plunged 14% to 525,000 units, and deliveries of light-duty trucks, SUVs and crossover vehicles ebbed 3% to 890,1000 units. Volume through the first seven months of 2017 totaled 9.87 million vehicles, 3% below the same period last year.

Traditional domestic brands saw year-on-year volume fall 12% to 586,400 vehicles last month. Sales fell 16% to 225,900 units at General Motors, 7% to 199,300 vehicles at Ford and 11% to 158,000 for Chrysler—largely because of deliberate cutbacks in low-profit sales to fleet buyers.

July sales by Asian brands receded 3% to 702,600 units. Monthly volume advanced at Toyota (+4% to 222,100 units), Subaru (+7% to 55,700) and Mitsubishi (+2% to 8,000).

But deliveries dropped for Honda (-1% to 151,000 units), Nissan (-3% to 128,300), Kia (-6% to 56,400), Hyundai (-28% to 54,100) and Mazda (-3% to 27,100).

European brands saw sales activity in July fall 7% to 126,200 units. The decline was led by Mercedes-Benz (-10% to 28,700 units), Volkswagen (-6% to 27,100) and BMW (- 15% to 22,000). Audi provided the only good news among high-volume brands, posting a 3% gain to 18,800 cars and crossovers.