June sales: U.S. auto industry showing signs of momentum

After some fits and starts early in the year, the company's Jeep and Ram brands seem to have hit their strides, which pushed the automaker to its best June retail numbers since 2004. Yes, retail. Jeep Wrangler remains the second-best-selling vehicle in FCA's entire portfolio with more than 23,000 units sold in June and more than 133,000 for the year. Only the Ram pickup line does better.

It has been a couple of years since we've speculated regarding Jeep's ability to clear a million units sold in a single year. Six months in, the brand is at 495,000 and change. Keep an eye on that.

Honda checks in with good months from both its core brand and luxury subsidiary Acura, the latter appearing to finally benefit from the new RDX hitting the retail pipeline. RDX set a record not just for June, for the model, or for 2018, but for Acura-badged SUV sales period with 7,292 units sold. The MDX held the previous top slot, and that record had stood since 2014.

Nissan's shift away from volume has cost it year-to-date, but June was good to Yokohama, with a 2.5-percent bump over last June. Infiniti, however, continues to slump.

Mazda reported another fantastic month, up more than 20 percent compared to last June on strong sales from--you guessed it--its entire CX lineup. It's also worth noting that Mazda6 had a bit of a boom month, though its YTD sales haven't budged in either direction. Some may call that a win in a sales climate this hostile to sedans.

Speaking of hostility and climate, Volkswagen also reported an uptick in June, with a 5.7-percent monthly increase and total sales just under 29,000. All of Volkswagen's gains are attributable to Atlas and Tiguan, as has been the trend for the year. Every other vehicle family is down significantly. Audi, as has become the expectation, manage to wring just enough volume out of its network to keep its streak alive.

While the Mazda-VW bout may interest some of you, it's worth noting that Subaru outsold them both in June. Yes, combined. With Ascent on the lots, expect Subaru to put up more silly numbers as 2018 goes on. Subaru is now within 5,000 units of Hyundai year-to-date, and well ahead of Kia.

That said, Hyundai came out of nowhere with a big June. Kona is no doubt contributing to that and Tucson had a decent month, but it was a relatively gangbuster performance by Elantra that pushed up our eyebrows.

Since June marked the end of the second quarter, we get to include GM sales in this month's story. Unfortunately, given the lack of granularity in its results, it's difficult to talk about trends. A few noteworthy things do stick out. For starters, Buick Regal sales are up, which is good news given the expansion of its lineup for 2018. The bad news? They've still only sold just over 8,000 of them so far this year. That makes it a slightly stronger seller than the Chevrolet Bolt EV.

In the luxury segment, Mercedes-Benz lead Lexus in June with more than 26,000 sales. BMW lead the pack with 29,407. Elsewhere in the luxury space, it's safe to say that Jaguar and Land Rover have again become rooted in reality, with the former under-performing and the latter selling at a rate that reflects a market that is heavily infatuated with trucks and utilities.