U.S. Cars Sales Shrank 6% in September

New-car deliveries in the U.S. fell to 1.44 million last month from 1.53 million in September 2017, largely because of year-on-year fluctuations.

Last month’s sales were hurt by Hurricane Florence. They also compare with an atypical surge to record-high sales last September, when consumers bought vehicles to replace those destroyed earlier by Hurricane Harvey.

On a seasonally adjusted annualized basis, September sales reached about 17.4 million units, the market’s strongest pace in 10 months. Volume through the first nine months of 2018 slipped less than 1% 12.79 million units, according to Automotive News.

Year-on-year sales in September rose for Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (+15% to 200,800 units), Subaru (+4% to 57,000), Tesla (+417% to 21,700) and Volvo (+10% to 8,700).

But sales in the U.S. slumped last month for all other carmakers. Deliveries among the market’s top sellers dropped for General Motors (-16% to 235,200 vehicles), Toyota (-10% to 203,100), Nissan (-12% to 122,800), Ford (-11% to 196,500), Honda (-7% to 132,700) and Hyundai-Kia (-1% to 108,900), AN says.