A Year After Cash For Clunkers: August 2010 Sales

The automakers happily used the government's Cash for Clunkers program last August to stat pad their sales figures. It’s no surprise then that without government incentives only a baker's dozen brands were able to improve upon last year's sales, a commendable feat for those brands. Once again Cadillac and Buick delivered incredible sales increases for GM of 83.1 and 66 percent. On the strength of its newly launched Cayenne and Panamera models Porsche sales grew by 33%. The vast majority of the brands posting sales increases do business in the luxury sector, and thus did not benefit much from the C4C program last year. The Chrysler group was one of the best performing mainstream brands posting a modest improvement overall. On the other hand Nissan, Honda, and Toyota were unable to come close to clunker driven sales of a year ago, dropping 31, 33 and 36% respectively.



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Who Struggled the Most After Cash for Clunkers?

The government's CARS program (cash for clunkers) was extremely helpful for car companies, driving numerous monthly sales records. Not surprisingly, the majority of car companies saw significantly lower September sales compared to clunker powered August sales. Suzuki did the worst of all brands, as it sold 68% fewer cars in September than it did in August. Not counting Saturn and Pontiac, Honda, Chrysler, and Nissan also sold less than half the number of cars in September than they did in August. On the other side of the spectrum, Cadillac, Buick, Porsche and Lincoln actually managed to sell more cars without the clunker program. In the luxury category, Acura did the worst, losing almost a quarter of its August sales, BMW and Lexus both sold 22% fewer cars. Mercedes Benz sold only one percent fewer cars in September, Audi sold only 11% fewer cars.

With the clunker program over, manufacturers will have to find new ways to increase their sales in the future.



September sales in comparison with August sales (click on image to enlarge)

August 2009 Sales

As expected the CARS program elevated car sales in the United States. Automaker's August sales reports make this clear with most brands having best monthly sales of the year, some brands produced best sales numbers in years while Hyundai and Honda had their best month ever. Luxury automakers, were not as lucky as the CARS program did little to raise their figures. The only exception was Audi which was able to lift its sales by 26%.

Overall Toyota lead all brands with 202,196 cars sold followed by Chevrolet, Ford and Honda.

Kia, Subaru and Hyundai lead all with sales increases of 60.4, 52 and 47 percent respectively. Saturn was the biggest loser of the month with a 58.4% drop.

August 2009 Sales by Automaker



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