DETROIT — Nearly all the major automakers reported steep sales declines for June, but for General Motors at least there was consolation: Toyota, its leading international competition, had it worse.
Even Toyota, with its flexible, efficient factories, couldn’t make the shift from trucks to cars as quickly as American drivers. Its sales for June shrank 21 percent.
So the Japanese automaker fell short of some analysts’ predictions that it would overtake GM as the U.S. sales leader. June sales at GM had a still-dramatic drop of about 18 percent.
The overall market fell 18.3 percent, according to Autodata Corp. It was the worst June for the industry in 17 years, said Jesse Toprak, chief industry analyst for auto information site , who predicted more misery ahead. He said automakers didn’t react quickly enough to the rise in gas prices.
“I think the gas price rise that we’ve seen from March through June was so fast and so dramatic that even Toyota, which is known to really forecast consumer demand, was caught off guard,” he said.
The shrinking market continued its shift toward more fuel-efficient models. Some automakers were caught with too few of the smaller cars.
That includes Toyota, which didn’t have enough of its fuel-efficient Prius, Corolla or Yaris cars at dealerships to keep up with demand.
Prius sales were hurt by a battery shortage, while sales of the Corolla and Yaris suffered because of plant capacity.
When consumer tastes change as quickly as they have this year, it’s tough for automakers to react in a matter of months. Additional workers have to be brought in and trained to build different cars.
Ford has been trying to raise output of the lone factory that makes the Focus compact, but still couldn’t meet demand.
GM and Ford have announced plans for new subcompacts, but they’re years off.
Only Honda, whose lineup is tilted toward smaller and more fuel-efficient cars, had a sales increase for June — 1 percent.
Sales plunged almost 28 percent at Ford and 36 percent at Chrysler.
George Pipas, Ford’s top sales analyst, said SUV sales are probably down for good.
“Our view is that gas prices aren’t likely to go down, and more importantly, many consumers have moved on,” he said.
