Detroit – A declining U.S. auto market, big sales last year and large incentives on Toyota pickup trucks all contributed to a lackluster June for Detroit’s three automakers and especially for General Motors.
GM saw its sales plummet 21.3 percent compared with June of last year, while Ford sales dropped 8.1 percent and Chrysler saw a decline of 1.4 percent.
But it was the same old story for the Japan-based automakers, all of which showed impressive gains led by Nissan’s 22.7 percent increase. Toyota saw a 10.2 percent gain, while Honda rose 11.5 percent.
Ford barely managed to hold off Toyota as the nation’s No. 2 auto seller in June and for the first half of the year, but Toyota narrowed the gap from 319,208 vehicles in the first half of last year to only 39,558 in the first half of 2007, according to Autodata Corp.
GM said it sold 320,668 passenger vehicles in June, compared with 407,513 during the same period last year. The declines for GM and Ford came as they continued to wean themselves from low-profit sales to rental-car companies.
Paul Ballew, GM’s executive director of global market and industry analysis, blamed the company’s sales decline on the planned reduction in fleet sales and a tough comparison with June of last year, when the company offered a big 72-hour sale.
Also, he said GM was surprised that Toyota offered zero-percent financing for 60 months, which cut into GM’s pickup-truck sales. He said the company may wind up altering its strategy of offering fewer incentives on pickups.
“If we have to make some changes in our incentive play, we will, because we are not going to cede ground in a category that we feel we’re best in class in,” he said.
GM’s top-selling pickups, the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra, saw declines of more than 20 percent, while the Toyota Tundra jumped 146.3 percent.
“Tundra really hit its stride this month, posting a record sales pace,” Jim Lentz, executive vice president of Toyota’s U.S. division, said in a statement. “In a short five months, the new truck’s earned its stripes with both loyal Toyota owners and those new to the brand.”
Toyota said it sold 245,739 Toyota and Lexus vehicles in June, compared with 223,018 a year ago. For the first half of the year, it sold 725,219 vehicles.
Toyota-brand passenger cars recorded best-ever June sales of 128,239, an 8.9 percent increase over the same period last year.
