The U.S. auto industry continues to recover from pandemic-polluted 2020 sales, but you wouldn’t know it when you look at the sales charts, which contain quite a bit of bad news for automakers. Manufacturers still report total retail sales monthly.
Except Genesis, which is having a bad year with a big asterisk on it, every brand that has reported November sales so far is down from last year. Even That, which surpassed the previous full-year sales record, sold fewer units last month than it did in the same period in 2020. The sister company Hyundai saw a drop of almost 20% for its main brand.
Honda’s motobike and Toyota, both seem in a better position to pass lack of chips earlier this year, still up more than 12% and almost 16% on the year, respectively, but these numbers are likely to drop in December if current trends continue. With production shutdowns less frequent and supply chain problems easing slightly, the final month of 2021 could be the difference between recovery and relapse for some automakers.
Subaru, which has experienced several consecutive years of sales growth before the pandemic, is at risk of selling fewer units in 2021 than in 2020. Its output fell by more than 34% in November. Automakers report monthly sales, just Ford’s figures were still prominent at the time of publication; as GM, Blue Oval is expected to announce that its sales have fallen further due to ongoing spare parts shortages.
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