Last month’s big winner was South Korea’s Hyundai, which posted double-digit sales growth. Sales at the top three sellers in the United States - General Motors, Ford, and Toyota - held steady, while Chrysler struggled for yet another month.
Sales were down 11 percent from October. But Jeff Schuster, executive director of automotive forecasting for J.D. Power and Associates, said the industry is encouraged by the seasonally adjusted sales rate, which takes into account perennial factors like higher sales in the spring and summer. That rate has been climbing each month since Cash for Clunkers ended in August, he said.
The adjusted rate was 10.9 million in November compared with 10.5 million in October.
“If that trend continues to hold, that fits with our expectations of a long and slow recovery,’’ Schuster said.
Small monthly auto sales increases are likely as the economy continues its slow improvement, but larger gains will not happen until the unemployment rate drops substantially and people feel confident spending money on big-ticket items, said Martin Zimmerman, a former chief economist at Ford Motor Co. who now teaches at the University of Michigan. The US jobless rate hit 10.2 percent in October, a 26-year high.
Carmakers continued to rely on discounts and other incentive spending to sell cars and trucks last month. Sales incentives rose 2 percent to $2,713 per vehicle, according to the auto website Edmunds.com. But those offers lacked the desperation of last November, when carmakers boosted incentives by 15 percent, indicating automakers now feel more confident about their ability to sell cars without drastic discounting.
General Motors said sales fell 2 percent in November, though sales of its core Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, and GMC brands rose. GM executives said despite the sales decline, the company is on better footing than it was late in 2008, with fewer brands and models.
Ford’s sales were essentially flat compared to last November, at 122,846, although sales of crossovers rose 26 percent and car sales rose 14 percent.
The image buyer may now be driving gas-sipping hybrids. Ford said sales of hybrids sales increased 73 percent, to 2,361. At about $2.65 per gallon, regular gasoline is up around 50 cents over November of last year. Sales of the Toyota Prius, the best-selling hybrid, were up 11 percent to 9,617.
But fuel-efficiency wasn’t the mantra for every buyer. Honda said truck sales rose 15 percent, while GM said Chevrolet Tahoe SUV sales jumped 57 percent.
Toyota said its US sales rose 2.6 percent to 133,700, led by standbys like the Camry sedan and the RAV4 crossover. Hyundai sales soared 46 percent on the back of its Sonata sedan.
Honda’s US sales fell 2.9 percent in November on slower sales of small cars. Nissan’s US sales rose 21 percent to 56,288 on higher sales of cars like the Altima and Maxima.
Chrysler continued to under perform the industry, selling only 63,560 vehicles last month, a decline of 25 percent.
