After being in second place for most of the year, the Toyota Corolla is making an end-of-year charge as it lead compact car sales for the third straight month and narrowed the overall gap with the Honda Civic to less than 4,000 sales.
The Corolla had a strong month with a 10 percent increase over November 2015. Sales are up nearly 4 percent for the year. Toyota is already starting to combine the Corolla and Corolla iM (formerly the Scion iM), which may push the Corolla higher in 2017, but for this year the cars will still be separated on TFL’s sales list.
The Civic’s sales have been strong all year after its last redesign made it one of the best cars in the segment, if not the best. Monthly sales were almost flat from last year with a 1 percent gain, but for the year the Civic is up nearly 11 percent.
After the top two, though, sales drop dramatically. No other car in the segment is anywhere near the 300,000-plus sales mark like the Corolla and Civic, and only two, the Nissan Sentra and Hyundai Elantra, are even close to 200,000.
The Chevy Cruze, another vastly improved car for 2016, had its second month on the podium, but early declines as production of the new model ramped up means yearly sales are still off by over 18 percent. 2017 should be a much better sales year for the Cruze.
Further down the list, the Kia Forte continues to make strong gains, both VW offerings – the Jetta and Golf – are rebounding after the diesel emissions scandal, and the iM looks to be benefitting from the move from Scion to Toyota.
Compact Car Sales – November 2016
| Nov 2016 # | Oct 2016 # | Nov ’16/Oct ’16 % | Nov 2016/2015 | YTD 2016 # | YTD 2016/2015 % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Toyota Corolla | 26,747 | 28,516 | -6.2% | 10.6% | 331,081 | 3.7% |
| Honda Civic | 25,303 | 26,359 | -4.0% | 1.0% | 335,445 | 10.9% |
| Chevrolet Cruze | 16,414 | 17,126 | -4.2% | 2.1% | 171,522 | -18.2% |
| Hyundai Elantra | 15,796 | 15,917 | -0.8% | -10.4% | 188,763 | -17.0% |
| Nissan Sentra | 14,028 | 14,168 | -1.0% | -3.3% | 197,672 | 7.6% |
| VW Jetta | 10,212 | 8,068 | 26.6% | -7.3% | 108,028 | -7.7% |
| Ford Focus | 9,130 | 9,368 | -2.5% | -18.4% | 158,547 | -17.2% |
| Kia Forte | 8,111 | 8,013 | 1.2% | 61.9% | 95,732 | 30.2% |
| VW Golf | 6,484 | 5,137 | 26.2% | 57.8% | 52,719 | -11.5% |
| Mazda Mazda3 | 6,388 | 6,946 | -8.0% | -13.7% | 87,465 | -10.8% |
| Subaru WRX | 2,591 | 2,579 | 0.5% | 4.4% | 30,341 | -1.0% |
| Dodge Dart | 2,203 | 2,407 | -8.5% | -69.0% | 41,877 | -49.0% |
| Subaru Impreza | 2,032 | 3,010 | -32.5% | -58.7% | 50,112 | -17.5% |
| Buick Verano | 1,535 | 2,336 | -34.3% | -6.7% | 29,239 | -0.3% |
| Scion iM/Toyota Corolla iM | 1,515 | 1,219 | 24.3% | 38.9% | 15,918 | 313.2% |
| Mitsubishi Lancer | 884 | 1,021 | -13.4% | -12.6% | 13,444 | -17.9% |
Check out this related TFLcar video of the new 2017 Nissan Sentra NISMO:
