Consumer demand is radically shifting in the face of $4 a gallon gasoline, and — due to lineups heavily skewed towards trucks and SUVs — domestic automakers are having an extremely tough time weathering the storm. Ford ’s perennial best-seller, the F-150, was knocked from its top-selling spot in May and, for the first time in the U.S., the Asian automakers outsold the Big Three.
Just a few months ago the domestic automakers saw their market share dip below the 50 percent mark for the first time, and things have worsened since then. While that statistic combined Asian automakers’ sales with the European brands to make up the other piece of the puzzle, the latest sales results show that the Asian automakers alone outsold the carmakers from the mitten state.
While General Motors, Ford and Chrysler captured 45.4 percent of the market in May, Asian automakers represented a 47.8 percent chunk of the market.
The sales decline is largely due to the domestic automakers being caught off guard regarding shifting consumer demand. While Asian brands continue to offer fuel-sipping models, the domestic brands are still offering several large trucks and SUVs. Ford’s Jim Farley, the company’s group vice president for marketing and communications, summed up the situation well: “May was a watershed month,” he told The Detroit News. “We as an industry are catching up with breathtaking choices customers are making.”
