Persistent supply chain issues such as lack computer chips slow down the car market in the United States further out. Thanks to the high demand for larger vehicles such as city SUVs and pick-up trucks, some manufacturers were still able to post significant sales increases in the third quarter. This is how the German industry giant increased Volkswagen sales in the three months to the end of September by 12 percent compared to the same period last year to 88,820 new vehicles. The main reason was strong SUV business with the Atlas, Tiguan and Taos models, as VW announced late Monday evening. Since the beginning of the year, sales have nevertheless fallen by 20.1 percent.
Volkswagen’s sports car subsidiary Porsche increased US sales in the third quarter by 8.5 percent to 16,581 cars. Also the German upper class manufacturer bmw recently increased its sales in the important US market. In the past three months, BMW delivered 78,031 new cars of its core brand there, increasing sales by 3.2 percent year-on-year. The subsidiary Mini increased by 11.4 percent to 7178 vehicles.
Despite the positive quarterly development, BMW’s US sales have fallen by a total of 5.3 percent since the beginning of the year. The second brand Mini is down 13.1 percent after nine months.
General Motors increased sales by almost a quarter
Even if not all manufacturers have presented their figures for the past quarter, the US industry leader is still there General Motors (GM) as one of the big winners. GM increased sales in the home market by 24 percent to 555,560 vehicles thanks to an improved chip supply and held the rival Toyota thus the second quarter in a row at a distance. With the Japanese, US sales fell by 7.1 percent to 526,017 cars.
Also the international size of the industry Stellantis had to cope with a significant decline in the second quarter. At Honda, sales even fell by 36 percent, competitor Nissan sold 23 percent less.