FCA Through June

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July 27, 2016

“In spite of some severe stock market volatility in June, the American consumer stayed focused on buying new vehicles and propelled FCA to six vehicle sales records last month,” said Reid Bigland, Senior Vice President, Sales, FCA–North America.

June was good to FCA in many ways:

–It was the group’s best June in 11 years.

–It was Ram Trucks best June in 10 years.

–It was Dodge’s best June in two years.

–It was Jeep’s best June—ever.

That bears repeating: Jeep’s best June ever.

Renegade

Jeep saw a 17% sales increase over 2015. It was the 33^rd consecutive month of year-over-year sales gains. It has set a sales record every month since November 2013.

Jeep Compass was up 128% in June, and is up 80% for the year (compared to 2015).

Patriot was up 24% and 8% for June and the first half, respectively.

Wrangler is getting a little old, so its June sales were up just 5%, but it is down 2% for the year.

Cherokee has seen a dip, with sales down 12% for June and 3% for the year.

Grand Cherokee, however, remains consistent, with sales up 9% for June and 8% for the first half.

Renegade is overwhelming, with June sales up 99% and first-half sales up 262%.

So while Wrangler and Cherokee are down for the first half, the other Jeep models more than make up for any losses.

Ram 1500

Ram Trucks, which basically consists of the Ram pickup and the ProMaster Van and ProMaster City, was up 14% in June and is up 11% for the first half.

And Dodge was up 3% in June and is up 6% for the first half of 2016.

So what’s missing from the picture so far?

The two key letters in “FCA”: Fiat and Chrysler.

Both brands aren’t doing so well.

In the case of Fiat, which consists of three 500 variants (500, 500L, 500X) and the just-launched 124 Spider, sales are down 19% for June and for the first half. However, it is worth noting that the 500X was up 257% for June and is up 2,148% for the first half—however, this is predicated on when the model came into showrooms more than crazy demand for the car (i.e., through June, 7,464 500X models were sold, compared with 7,932 500s—and the 500 sales are down 48%).

Meanwhile, Walter P. Chrysler is shedding a tear somewhere because the brand that bears his name was down 20% in June and is down 19% for the year.

It should be pointed out, however, that the Chrysler showroom isn’t exactly bursting with products.

There is the 200, which is a much better can than its sales would seem to indicate (down 58% in June; down 62% for the first half). This is a car that Sergio Marchionne has indicated that he’d like someone else to build for FCA, which indicates that it is something of an orphan, which it doesn’t deserve.

There is the 300, which was down 7% in June but which is up 24% for the first half. But that 24% needs to be put into context, as that’s 30,754 vehicles. So let’s consider the Chevrolet Impala, a sizeable car, by comparison: for the first half its sales are down 2.9%, yet there have been 56,390 sold.

Chrysler also has the outgoing Town & Country minivan and the now-incoming Pacific minivan. One has done extremely well. One will do extremely well.

But it is hard to imagine Chrysler consisting of a big sedan and a minivan.