The 20 Best-Selling Cars in May

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jun 3, 11:46AM EDT · Published Jun 3, 7:09AM EDT

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While total monthly cars and light truck sales notched a modest increase of 1.6% in May to 1,635,090, analysts commented that for the year 2015 sales would reach near record levels. It would be hard to show that trend from the sales of the 20 best-selling vehicles. Many of the numbers faltered badly.

The drop off in sales among the best-selling cars left small car manufactures to boost the industry as a whole. And some midsized manufacturers did that. First among these was white-hot Subaru. Its sales for the month rose to 49,561, up 12.2%. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles N.V. (NYSE: FCAU) continued its months-long string of improvements. Total sales of the third largest U.S. car company rose 4.6% to 198,320. It now sells more cars and trucks than Honda Motor Co. Ltd. (NYSE: HMC), which posted a sales increase of a less than modest 1.3% to 154,593.

The luxury portion of the car market has become large enough that sales of companies in the sector, particularly the Germans, actually contribute at an important portion of the U.S. market. Mercedes sales were up 12% to 32,350. BMW sales rose 4.7% to 31,003. And Audi sales were up by 11% to 18,428. Taken as a group, they sell more than South Korean leader Hyundai, with sales of 63,610, down 10%.

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As a demonstration of how little the three largest car manufacturers by sales contributed, General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM), Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) and Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE: TM) together had sales that were no better than flat in May, compared to the same month last year.

As evidence of sales trouble among the best-selling cars and light trucks, both light truck leader Ford’s F-Series pickup and car leader Camry had sharp decreases in May, compared to the same month a year earlier. Equinox, RAV4, Rogue and Wrangler posted extraordinary grow for May. Accord, Camry and Cruze got slaughtered.

1. Ford F-Series

May 2014 sales: 68,520	May 2015 sales: 61,870	Pct. change: -9.7
2014 YTD sales: 305,265	2015 YTD sales: 302,009	Pct. change: -1.1

2. Chevrolet Silverado

>May 2014 sales: 46,648	May 2015 sales: 51,602	Pct. change: 10.6
2014 YTD sales: 197,160	2015 YTD sales: 224,274	Pct. change: 13.8

3. Toyota Camry

May 2014 sales: 49,584	May 2015 sales: 43,837	Pct. change: -11.6
2014 YTD sales: 181,876	2015 YTD sales: 178,408	Pct. change: -1.9

4. Ram P/U

May 2014 sales: 37,131	May 2015 sales: 39,952	Pct. change: 7.6
2014 YTD sales: 170,711	2015 YTD sales: 179,384	Pct. change: 5.1

5. Toyota Corolla

May 2014 sales: 36,611	May 2015 sales: 36,768	Pct. change: 0.4
2014 YTD sales: 143,409	2015 YTD sales: 159,486	Pct. change: 11.2

6. Honda Civic

May 2014 sales: 36,089	May 2015 sales: 34,472	Pct. change: -4.5
2014 YTD sales: 34,796	2015 YTD sales: 129,574	Pct. change: -3.9

7. Nissan Altima

May 2014 sales: 36,053	May 2015 sales: 33,630	Pct. change: -6.7
2014 YTD sales: 150,342	2015 YTD sales: 142,613	Pct. change: -5.1

8. Honda Accord

May 2014 sales: 39,637	May 2015 sales: 32,373	Pct. change: -18.3
2014 YTD sales: 152,949	2015 YTD sales: 128,269	Pct. change: -16.1

9. Honda CR-V

May 2014 sales: 32,430	May 2015 sales: 32,090	Pct. change: -1.0
2014 YTD sales: 128,563	2015 YTD sales: 134,669	Pct. change: 4.7

10. Ford Fusion

May 2014 sales: 33,881	May 2015 sales: 31,325	Pct. change: -7.5
2014 YTD sales: 137,894	2015 YTD sales: 127,749	Pct. change: -17.2

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11. Chevrolet Equinox

May 2014 sales: 22,695	May 2015 sales: 29,456	Pct. change: 29.8
2014 YTD sales: 99,083	2015 YTD sales: 123,925	Pct. change: 25.1

12. Ford Escape

May 2014 sales: 31,896	May 2015 sales: 29,248	Pct. change: -8.3
2014 YTD sales: 127,780	2015 YTD sales: 122,290	Pct. change: -4.3

13. Toyota RAV4

May 2014 sales: 23,465	May 2015 sales: 28,808	Pct. change: 22.8
2014 YTD sales: 95,363	2015 YTD sales: 118,732	Pct. change: 24.5

14. Nissan Rogue

May 2014 sales: 18,722	May 2015 sales: 25,901	Pct. change: 38.3
2014 YTD sales: 84,236	2015 YTD sales: 112,154	Pct. change: 33.1

15. Ford Focus

May 2014 sales: 23,683	May 2015 sales: 23,934	Pct. change: 1.1
2014 YTD sales: 94,690	2015 YTD sales: 95,028	Pct. change: 0.4

16. Chevrolet Cruze

May 2014 sales: 32,393	May 2015 sales: 23,752	Pct. change: -26.7
2014 YTD sales: 119,330	2015 YTD sales: 105,291	Pct. change: -11.8

17. Hyundai Elantra

May 2014 sales: 21,867	May 2015 sales: 23,432	Pct. change: 7.2
2014 YTD sales: 95,329	2015 YTD sales: 102,085	Pct. change: 7.1

18. Jeep Wrangler

May 2014 sales: 19,235	May 2015 sales: 22,324	Pct. change: 16.1
2014 YTD sales: 69,298	2015 YTD sales: 83,291	Pct. change: 20.2

19. Ford Explorer

May 2014 sales: 22,623	May 2015 sales: 22,304	Pct. change: -1.4
2014 YTD sales: 87,170	2015 YTD sales: 99,855	Pct. change: 14.6

20. Chevrolet Malibu

May 2014 sales: 19,288	May 2015 sales: 21,461	Pct. change: 11.3
2014 YTD sales: 87,368	2015 YTD sales: 81,292	Pct. change: -7.0

Source: Good Car Bad Car

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.