Steel Markets

NAFTA Auto Production & US Sales for December 2014

January 22, 2015

December was another strong month for light vehicle sales at 16.9 million units and following the very strong November result of 17.2 million units (annualized). This was the second best result since August. In 2014 as a whole sales were 16.5 million units, up from 15.6 million in 2013 and the best sales result since 2006.

Light trucks increased faster than automobiles in November but gave back some of that differential in December when the LT segment was down by 200,000 units, twice the decline experienced by automobiles. Light truck sales declined from 9.0 to 8.8 million units as cars declined from 8.2 to 8.1 million. For all of 2014 the mix was 52 percent LT and 48 percent cars. Light trucks includes crossovers. Chrysler and Nissan had the best sales increase in 2014, both up by double digits, Ford’s sales declined slightly in 2014 as a result of the Dearborn shut down to re-tool the F150.

Total light vehicle production in NAFTA in December was at an annual rate of 14,732,040 units, down by 9.2 percent from November which was down by 15.5 percent from October. October was the highest production volume month since June 2000 and the November and December declines were entirely seasonal. December was down 9.2 percent from November, on average since 2004, December production has declined 16.8 percent from November, (Figure 1).

Note: these production numbers are not seasonally adjusted, the sales data reported above are seasonally adjusted. On a rolling 12 months basis y/y light vehicle production in NAFTA increased by 4.5 percent through December and is now well above the pre-recession peak, (Figure 2).

Growth had slowed for four straight months through November on a rolling 12 months basis but picked up again in December. On this basis the US is up by 4.9 percent, Canada is down by 3.6 percent and Mexico is up by 9.4 percent, (Table 1). For NAFTA as a whole on a rolling 12 month basis year over year, light truck production is up by 8.5 percent and autos are down by 0.6 percent.

To put the production of the three NAFTA countries into perspective, US output of total light vehicles in the 4th quarter was 4.5 times that of Canada and 3.4 times that of Mexico, (Figure 3).

The mix of light vehicles is very different by country, (Figure 4). The percentage of autos in the Mexican mix is over 60 percent but only 38.3 in the US and 36.2 percent in Canada.

In the last four years the US production share has been increasing at the expense of Canada, Mexico’s share has been virtually unchanged in that time period, (Figure 5). However over the shorter time period of 2014 Mexico has taken some share from the US.

Ward’s Automotive reported on Tuesday that total light vehicle inventories in the US declined by nine days of sales in December to sixty one days. This is three days higher than in December last year. Inventories of the Detroit three declined in December by thirteen days to seventy one, the Asian manufacturers declined by seven days to fifty four, and the Europeans declined by seven to forty three.

The SMU data file contains more detail than be shown here in this condensed report. Readers can obtain copies of additional time based performance results on request if they wish to dig deeper. Available are graphs of auto, light truck and medium and heavy truck production, growth rate and production share by country.