Plunge in car sales hits Chrysler, GM hardest
Written on October 4, 2009
In the first month after the end of the cash for clunkers program, automakers on Thursday reported virtually across-the-board sales declines with Chrysler and General Motors seeing volumes nearly halved, but Ford not hit as hard as expected and even robust gains for Hyundai.
Japanese automakers fared better. Toyota saw a decline of 16.1 percent, while sales fell 7 percent for Nissan and 20.1 percent for Honda. However, Hyundai sales rose 27 percent in September.
Chrysler saw its sales fall 42 percent, slightly better than GM, while Ford beat expectations with a 5.1 percent decline.
GM sold some 156,673 vehicles in September, a slump of 45 percent with retail sales off 46 percent and fleet sales dropping 43 percent empire payday loans.
Car sales were down 43 percent and total truck sales plummeted 47 percent.
On a percentage basis, Cadillac saw the smallest dip, down 9 percent to 11,339 vehicles, with the largest decline in the soon-to-be-wound-down Saturn division, which posted an 84 percent drop to 2,993 units.
GM’s best-selling Chevrolet division posted a 41 percent decline for the month to 102,538 vehicles.
Filed in: term.