Hyundai, Kia, Subaru sales advance 7th straight month; Toyota, Honda slip

Toyota said it had 134,361 cars and lights trucks in U.S. dealer inventory, at ports or in transit at the close of February, up slightly from 130,315 at the end of January and 110,674 a year ago.

Honda Motor Co. reported a 1.4 percent decline in February results, with the Honda division down 3 percent but Acura volume rising 12 percent, its second straight monthly gain.

Three of the Honda brand’s five biggest sellers posted double-digit declines last month: Accord, down 18 percent; CR-V, up 5.9 percent; Pilot, down 11 percent; Civic, up 2.3 percent; and HR-V, down 37 percent.

A Honda spokesman said the company ended February with roughly 33,000 cars and light trucks on the ground, or just a 12-day supply.

Honda said sales of several redesigned core models — CR-V, Accord and Pilot — are still temporarily constrained by supply and logistics, with vehicles now heading to market with an anticipated boost to the company’s March deliveries. 

Deliveries at Hyundai last month rose 8.8 percent to 57,044, a February record, the company said, with retail sales rising 1 percent to 52,932, and fleet accounting for 7.2 percent of overall volume, or 4,112 units.

Hyundai said Wednesday it ended February with 54,156 vehicles in U.S. inventory, up 20 percent from 45,158 at the close of January and 190 percent from 18,621 a year earlier.

“We’ve got really good momentum in a very, very challenging year,” said Randy Parker, CEO of Hyundai Motor America.
“We’re not quite back to normalcy at this point in time. Our strategy is to continue to focus on retail and support our dealer partners, but as production continues to improve, we will support our fleet channel.”

Volume rose 24 percent to a February record of 60,859 at Kia, with major gains for the Forte, Sportage, Sorento, Telluride and Carnival.

Eric Watson, vice president of sales operations at Kia America, said rising production and inventory levels are allowing the automaker to “fully capitalize” on demand.

At Subaru, February volume rose 2.1 percent. Mazda deliveries rose 8.8 percent to 30,639 in February for the company’s fifth straight monthly increase. The company said it had a 20-day supply of vehicles, or 24,215 cars and light trucks, as of Feb. 23.

Genesis also set a February record with U.S. sales rising 21 percent to 4,208 on sharply higher crossover deliveries and the new GV60 electric crossover.

U.S. light-vehicle sales are projected to rise 3.9 percent to 7.2 percent in February, based on forecasts from J.D. Power-LMC Automotive, Cox Automotive, TrueCar and S&P Global Mobility, with sharply higher fleet deliveries offsetting flat retail volume.

Fleet shipments across the industry are expected to come in at 209,200 in February, up 54 percent from February 2022, J.D. Power estimates, and represent 19 percent of total light-vehicle volume, up from just 13 percent a year earlier. Several automakers face a backlog of commercial, government and rental fleet orders as a result of the microchip shortage that prompted many to prioritize more profitable retail volume.

Ford Motor Co. and Volvo will report February results on Thursday. The rest of the industry reports U.S. sales on a quarterly basis.

While pent-up demand remains strong in the wake of chronic inventory shortages, higher interest rates, rising new-vehicle prices and falling used-vehicle prices are weighing on retail volume, analysts say.

“We have diverging markets today,” said Charlie Chesbrough, senior economist at Cox Automotive. “New inventory is slowly stabilizing while used supply is falling. With many affordability-seeking vehicle buyers leaving the new market for the used, dealers may find they have too little used inventory, and price declines may reverse. And [automakers] may find they have too much new-vehicle inventory and be forced to be more aggressive with incentives to boost sales.”