by the numbers

Nissan, Ford, Chrysler Lead Gains, Subaru Sets All-Time Record April showers sure do have May sales flowering this year. The numbers for last month are in, and generally speaking, the US market was strong with most automakers reporting higher sales than a year ago. Of those that were in the red, ...

Ford And Nissan Make Big Gains, Toyota Falls Unlike the month of March, when automakers left and right were breaking monthly sales records despite having one fewer selling day, April 2013 was a month when some brands couldn't even beat their year-over-year sales numbers despite being spotted an ...

They say records are made to be broken, and the auto industry broke more than a few last month. Sales for the month of March added up to a number of all-time best months for automakers, like Nissan (+0.39 percent to 126,623) and Subaru (+13.32 percent to 36,701). General Motors reports it had its ...

Last year was a Leap Year, and February 2012 indeed offered automakers an extra day of selling cars compared to the 24 trips around the sun we took last month. Nevertheless, the US auto industry took full advantage of the days they were given and posted a solid month of sales in February ...

Is there anything else to discuss this month besides the fact that By the Numbers has a new graphic? Since sometime in 2006, I've dutifully collected this monthly sales data and published it in table form for your perusal, and I've always accompanied the data and my analysis of it with that funny ...

Best Year Since 2007, F-Series And Camry Remain Top-Sellers Most automakers probably wish the party that was 2012 would keep right on going into 2013, because the past year was was very good for the auto industry in terms of sales. With December sales now reported, the final seasonally adjusted ...

Volkswagen, BMW, Honda End Year On High Notes Let's get right to it since you're probably still nursing a hangover from New Year's Eve and what you really want to know are not sales results for the month of December, but sales results for the whole of 2012. Patience; that post is coming next, but ...

Pent-Up Demand Lifts Many Automakers Practically nothing good came of Superstorm Sandy, which made landfall in late October. Along with destroying infrastructure and throwing into turmoil the lives of countless people who never thought their home would go toe-to-toe with a hurricane, Sandy also ...

Hurricane Sandy's Effect Will Be Delayed All that's left of Hurricane Sandy, which slammed into the Eastern US this week, is some rain showers and gusts of wind, but the effect of this storm-of-the-century will be felt by those in its path for months to come. Likewise, Sandy made landfall at the ...

Toyota, VW, Honda Up Big Again, But Not As Much As has been the case for a few months now, the same three brands led the month with the largest sales increases among major automakers: Toyota, Volkswagen and Honda. They have swapped positions on the podium each time, but each is a medalist again ...

Volkswagen, Honda and Toyota Post Big Gains If you want evidence that the economy is on the mend, look no further than the string of positive monthly sales reports coming from the auto industry this year. August continues the trend with the vast majority of brands and companies reporting improved ...

Ever hear the expression that there aren't enough hours in the day? For General Motors and Ford, there weren't enough days in July. These two domestics sold fewer vehicles last month than the year before, but they also had two fewer days to work with, July having only 24 selling days to work with ...

We can't remember a time when, out of all the brands that sell cars in the U.S., only two reported negative sales for the month. Only Jaguar and Mitsubishi reported selling fewer vehicles last month than the year before. Of course, many brands just barely squeaked out a positive number, and six ...

Toyota and Honda Outperform Against Backdrop of Earthquake-Related Shortages Without context, one might think that sales for the U.S. automotive industry in May were off-the-charts good. Look at brands like Toyota and Honda, sales of which were up an astonishing 88.9 and 46.0 percent, ...

April showers may result in May's flowers, but it didn't result in great car sales numbers. Overall, sales in April only climbed 2.3 percent compared to April 2011, leaving some carmakers and observers scratching their head. Of course, the raw numbers, as provided by AutoData Corp., also note ...

Industry Had Three Fewer Days To Sell The sales figures you see below aren't quite what they seem. If you look at just the left column where the battle between green and red cells is almost at a draw, you might think that April 2012 was a step backwards in terms of sales momentum for the auto ...

Chrysler Keeps Winning, Hyundai and Kia Set Records Another chapter has been written in the comeback story of Chrysler, which reported a 69.7-percent sales increase in March compared to a year earlier. We're starting to wonder, though, what will happen if gas prices continue rising. If consumers ...

Scott Burgess, former auto critic for The Detroit News, has joined the AOL Autos / Autoblog team. He is a veteran automotive journalist with six years in Detroit covering the auto industry and a Michigan native. Each month he'll dig deeper into the industry's sales figures and file this By The ...

Chrysler Wins Again, Small Car Battle Brewing and Mustang Beats Camaro Automakers love Leap Year. And why wouldn't they? Who doesn't love an extra day for selling? Actually, it turns out the extra day that Leap Year provides didn't make that much of a difference, as there were 25 selling days in ...

Camry and Civic lead comeback of Toyota, Honda When 2011 ticked over to become 2012, something changed with the dynamic that had been in place nearly all of last year. We had become so used to the domestics seeing increased sales month after month while Toyota and Honda struggled to keep their ...