May Sales

In May the US automotive sector turned in a healthy 8.2 percent increase over last year — putting the annual car tally on track for 15.3 million unit sales.

A closer look at the stats shows some particularly interesting highlights.

Subaru up 34 percent had the largest single sales month in its history in the US market — fueled by the hot new Forester SUV.

Cadillac has become the fastest growing auto brand in the US in the slip-stream of its highly acclaimed new ATS and XTS sedans.

Ford — with the rock solid base of F-150 pickup sales and a strong line-up of smaller Fiesta, Focus and Fusion models as well as the all new Taurus sedan and Explorer SUV — took 17 percent of US market share — just half a percent behind the perennially dominant General Motors.

In the Chrysler family the Ram truck and Dodge Dart, Charger and Challenger drove an 11 percent increase

On the higher end BMW was up 13.8 percent and Jaguar saw a 33 percent boost. Perhaps in the face of rising summer fuel prices — the steady but generally slow sales of hybrids, battery-electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids and diesels spiked 30 percent.