Chart Of The Day: The Pickup Truck Portion

Pickup truck sales increased 10% in the United States in October, an 18,590-unit jump in a market which grew 6%. Besides drawing attention to the, "The people buy trucks because the fuel is cheap," argument, which is not at all completely false nor entirely true, the 10% increase drew our attention to the massive figures generated by the biggest nameplates and their expansive product ranges.

We've covered truck sales already this month, so rather than taking another deep dive into October's specifics, consider instead the percentage of America's growing auto market that belonged to the pickup truck category last month: 15.8%.

That's not a small number. Indeed, it's a significantly larger number than the one achieved by the category through the first ten months of 2014: 13.8%. For perspective, however, think back one decade. In 2004, 19% of the new vehicles sold in America were pickup trucks.

Although this chart provides another line at which to gander, we're not suggesting that buyers of dual-rear-wheeled Ram 3500s are switching over to Honda CR-Vs, only that times are changing. Pickup trucks remain vital to the health of the American auto industry, more significantly because of their profit generation than with their outright volume. But the market isn't returning to a 16 million+ annual sales pace because of the strength of passenger cars, or minivans, or pickup trucks. It's the ess-you-vees.

The Honda CR-V, Ford Escape, and Toyota RAV4 are all on pace for another record sales year, a follow-up to 2014's record sales year for each of those nameplates. Ford should also sell more than 750,000 F-Series pickups, a startlingly high number compared with the totals achieved by other vehicle lines, but not exactly the 939,511 sold in 2004.

Timothy Cain is the founder of GoodCarBadCar.net, which obsesses over the free and frequent publication of U.S. and Canadian auto sales figures.

The post Chart Of The Day: The Pickup Truck Portion appeared first on The Truth About Cars.

from The Truth About Cars http://ift.tt/Jh8LjA

Put the internet to work for you.

Turn off or edit this Recipe