With entry-level vehicle sales up 17.0 percent in August across Canada and the Honda Civic subcompact slipping past the Dodge Caravan minivan into second place on the top-20 chart, it's hard to avoid the idea that maybe consumers were reacting to dramatically-higher gasoline prices, at least a little.
Auto industry insider thinking generally believes that the Canadians who
worry about gas prices have already moved to smaller vehicles, you see, and the people who buy bigger have no choice because they need the size to fulfill their needs. So this kind of sales shift makes a lot of people scratch their head.
As auto analyst Dennis DesRosiers puts it, "Well, $1.40 per litre is what it takes for consumers to move to smaller vehicles," though he's quick to point out that sales in the large/luxury/sport segment were also up 8.4 percent, "so not all customers moved down market."
Overall, however, it's hard to imagine that August's record gas prices didn't have something to do with a change in the sales charts. The big
numbers for the subcompact and compact segments, both car and light truck "were likely related to the sky high gas prices. We'll see how this develops through the rest of the year."
DesRosiers himself has argued that gas prices shouldn't have too much affect on changing buying patterns, so it's not surprising that he points out that there were a lot of incentives in August, so "we need to be careful about reading too much into these numbers. A lot of individual models and segments were up for all the wrong reasons. The fall selling season is upon us and the real story will develop over the next few months."
For whatever reasons, the best-selling models across Canada for the first eight month of the year (according to DesRosiers' calculations) are as follows (with 2004's results in brackets):
1) Ford F-Series 49,113 (49,045, 0.1 percent)
2) Honda Civic Sedan/Coupe 46,131 (43,710, 5.5 percent)
2 Dodge Caravan 46,100 (47,280, -2.5 percent)
4) Mazda3 38,322 (32,426, 18.2 percent)
5) Toyota Corolla 32,188 (31,773, 1.3 percent)
6) GMC Sierra 27,212 (26,485, 2.7 percent)
7) Chevrolet Silverado 26,002 (25,033, 3.9 percent)
8) Dodge Ram Pickup 25,477 (28,135 -9.4 percent)
9) Toyota Echo 22,754 (21,559, 5.5 percent)
10) Ford Focus 19,647 (20,919, -6.1 percent)
11) Honda Accord 16,730 (17,911, -6.6 percent)
12) Pontiac Sunfire 16,204 (22,969 -29.5 percent)
13) Toyota Matrix 15,981 13,485 18.5 percent)
14) Ford Escape/Hybrid 15,271 (14,165, 7.8 percent)
15) Chevrolet Uplander 15,214 (n.a.)
16) Chevrolet Cobalt 14,744 (n.a.)
17) Pontiac Montana SV6 13,945 (n.a.)
18) Ford Freestar 11,727 (15,294, -23.3 percent)
19) Toyota Camry 13,309 (13,471, -1.2 percent)
20) Honda CR-V 10,807 (10,176, 6.2 percent)
Auto industry insider thinking generally believes that the Canadians who
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| Mazda 3 (Photo: Mazda) |
As auto analyst Dennis DesRosiers puts it, "Well, $1.40 per litre is what it takes for consumers to move to smaller vehicles," though he's quick to point out that sales in the large/luxury/sport segment were also up 8.4 percent, "so not all customers moved down market."
Overall, however, it's hard to imagine that August's record gas prices didn't have something to do with a change in the sales charts. The big
 |
| GMC Sierra (Photo: General Motors) |
DesRosiers himself has argued that gas prices shouldn't have too much affect on changing buying patterns, so it's not surprising that he points out that there were a lot of incentives in August, so "we need to be careful about reading too much into these numbers. A lot of individual models and segments were up for all the wrong reasons. The fall selling season is upon us and the real story will develop over the next few months."
For whatever reasons, the best-selling models across Canada for the first eight month of the year (according to DesRosiers' calculations) are as follows (with 2004's results in brackets):
1) Ford F-Series 49,113 (49,045, 0.1 percent)
2) Honda Civic Sedan/Coupe 46,131 (43,710, 5.5 percent)
2 Dodge Caravan 46,100 (47,280, -2.5 percent)
4) Mazda3 38,322 (32,426, 18.2 percent)
5) Toyota Corolla 32,188 (31,773, 1.3 percent)
6) GMC Sierra 27,212 (26,485, 2.7 percent)
7) Chevrolet Silverado 26,002 (25,033, 3.9 percent)
8) Dodge Ram Pickup 25,477 (28,135 -9.4 percent)
9) Toyota Echo 22,754 (21,559, 5.5 percent)
10) Ford Focus 19,647 (20,919, -6.1 percent)
11) Honda Accord 16,730 (17,911, -6.6 percent)
12) Pontiac Sunfire 16,204 (22,969 -29.5 percent)
13) Toyota Matrix 15,981 13,485 18.5 percent)
14) Ford Escape/Hybrid 15,271 (14,165, 7.8 percent)
15) Chevrolet Uplander 15,214 (n.a.)
16) Chevrolet Cobalt 14,744 (n.a.)
17) Pontiac Montana SV6 13,945 (n.a.)
18) Ford Freestar 11,727 (15,294, -23.3 percent)
19) Toyota Camry 13,309 (13,471, -1.2 percent)
20) Honda CR-V 10,807 (10,176, 6.2 percent)