February 2011 Sales Recap

With gas prices surging upwards the conventional thinking would have car sales falling, yet the complete opposite was true in February. As a whole the auto industry recorded a 27% improvement over February of 2010 and posted a 13.4 million sales pace for the year. The best performing brands all posted unheard of improvements of over 70% compared to last year. Fueled by an almost doubling of pickup sales the Ram sub-brand posted an 81% increase in sales. As a whole Dodge was up 22%. February was an exceptionally strong month for General Motors. Its luxury oriented Buick brand was up 73% while Cadillac up by 70%. Chevrolet was up 43% to lead the biggest sellers with Toyota right behind with a 41.8% improvement. Toyota's luxury division Lexus did not fair as well only managing a 0.2% improvement. Of the remaining mainstream brands only Lincoln and Chrysler posted declines for the month. It will be interesting to see how the sales trend progresses over the next few months and if the rising fuel prices take a toll on sales.

As before Kill With Fire will continue to monitor sales of electric vehicles, Chevrolet sold 281 Volts and Nissan delivered 67 Leafs to customers.