When a certain website known for speaking The Truth About Cars recently promoted a story about the sales success of the Porsche Cayenne, there was the usual wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth from the automotive teeth-gnashers in the comments section. After all, with the big crossover responsible for almost 45 percent of Porsche’s U.S. sales last year, more than twice as much as the iconic Porsche 911 contributed to the bottom line, the brand is facing a serious identity crisis. But that also begs an important question for the industry as a whole: What percent of a given brand’s sales should its top seller account for? Let’s try to get a handle on that by checking out the usual mainstream suspects to see which ones are in danger of becoming one-trick ponies themselves.
Playing a Pickup GameIt’s not exactly a shock to discover the best-selling vehicles from the Detroit Three are all full-size pickups, or that the Ford F-150 accounts for by far the greatest percentage of its automaker’s deliveries. But it might surprise some people to realize how much Ford (both as a division and as a company) relies on the F-150 as compared to its rival’s performances with their entries. The Blue Oval’s truck represented 28.3 percent of all Ford division sales in 2011 and 27.2 percent of the sales of the automaker as a whole. The Chevy Silverado was worth about 23.3 percent of Chevrolet sales last year, and just 16.6 percent of the General’s deliveries overall. Even with the GMC Sierra factored into the equation, GM’s full-size pickups added up to just 22.5 percent of all the automaker’s sales in the prior year. The Ram pickup hauled off 17.8 percent of the Chrysler Group’s deliveries in 2011 and, as essentially the only entry in its division, 95 percent of Ram’s total.
Also a bit surprising was the fact that, in the rest of the domestic divisions, the best performers on this basis were responsible for even higher proportions of their brand’s totals. Check out this list of vehicles and the percent of sales they contributed to their divisions:
Lincoln MKZ, 32.1 percent
Buick LaCrosse, 32.9 percent
Buick Enclave, 32.9 percent
Cadillac SRX, 37.3 percent
Cadillac CTS, 36.1 percent
GMC Sierra, 37.5 percent
Chrysler Town & Country, 42.6 percent
Chrysler 200, 39.3 percent
Jeep Grand Cherokee, 30.4 percent
Jeep Wrangler, 29.2 percent
Dodge Caravan, 24.5 percent
What’s interesting here is how many brands have both car and crossover entries approaching parity, which is a good sign of balance in a marketplace that’s currently truck heavy but also retains a strong focus on cars to satisfy the growing number of buyers looking for more fuel-efficiency. For what it’s worth, this a particular pet peeve among Porschephiles, since not only is the Cayenne earning such a large chunk of the brand’s sales, but it’s catching them at a rate that’s almost twice that of the nearest car (which, to add insult to injury, is the Porsche Panamera).
A Better Balancing ActIntriguingly, the situation is far different among the Japanese Big Three. The one Toyota vehicle responsible for the highest percentage of its brand’s deliveries was the Toyota Camry, but the popular midsizer accounted for only about 21.3 percent of the division’s total. The midsize sedan at Honda and Nissan also led the way for their respective brands, with the Honda Accord tallying 23 percent of all Honda division sales and the Nissan Altima good for 24.3 percent of Nissan’s. If we do glance at the truck side of the business, the vehicles pulling in the biggest proportions of their brand’s customers were the Toyota RAV4 (9.1 percent), Honda CR-V (21.3 percent) and Nissan Rogue (13.2 percent).
It’s more tough news for Honda, as the seemingly truck-friendly results actually mask a collapse in car sales: The company’s car deliveries fell by 13.2 percent in 2011, more than twice as much as Toyota’s and about three time worse than Nissan’s.
The leaders from the Japanese lux divisions were the Acura MDX, 35.1 percent; Lexus RX, 41.6 percent; and Infiniti G Series, 59.1 percent.
Splitting the Difference with Hyundai and KiaThe story at Hyundai and Kia was right in line with the brands two slightly different personalities, albeit with a slight spot of concern at the former. Hyundai already gets a significantly higher chunk of its sales from cars than crossovers—in 2011, the ratio was essentially 80 percent to 20 percent—and the Hyundai Sonata drew in just under 35 percent of all Hyundai sales in 2011; for Kia, which last year split deliveries at roughly 58 percent cars and 42 percent crossovers, the Kia Sorento claimed about 26.8 percent of the brand’s 2011 sales. Which is certainly reflected in the varying growth rates the two companies reported last year: Hyundai increased sales by a robust 20 percent, but Kia countered with a markedly higher 36.3 percent improvement.
Today’s TakeawayTrying to parse the numbers here is unexpectedly difficult, with the full-line automakers showing percentage leaders that are responsible for between 17.8 percent of their company’s sales on the low end and almost 35 percent on the high end. And there’s plenty of variation even when taking things specifically on a brand-by-brand basis. The one thing that is clear, however, is that success in the U.S. market is still driven by trucks—including the Porsche Cayenne.
