Nissan 2019 Cars Sales Worst in America, With Hyundai Kia Most Successful

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Dec 28, 8:30AM EST

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Nissan 2019 Cars Sales Worst in America, With Hyundai Kia Most Successful — © Courtesy of Nissan

American car sales are likely to top 17 million again in 2019, the fifth year of sales above that extraordinary level. Even so, the figure will be down 1% compared to 2018, and not all manufacturers will perform the same. Nissan’s sales are expected to fall by 8.6% for the year. Hyundai Kia’s are expected to rise by 4.8%.

Cox Automotive has forecast 2019 sales at 17.09 million, compared to last year’s 17,320,982.

Among the four large manufacturers that dominated the U.S. market, FCA (Fiat Chrysler) is expected to do the best, with sales down 1.2% to 2,235,204. Toyota sales are expected to drop 1.4% to 2,426,667. Ford barely will edge out the largest Japanese car company. Its sales are expected to drop by 3.4% to 2,485,222. Market leader General Motors is forecast to post sales of 2,951,757, down 2.5%.

Nissan is the only one among the second-tier car companies to post a drop in sales this year compared to 2018. Its 8.6% fall-off will put its unit sales at 1,493,877.

Honda’s sales are expected to rise by 1.4% to 1,604,828. Hyundai Kia’s are projected to reach 1,267,621. Subaru sales are expected to rise by 3.5% to 680,135. And a 2.5% rise to 634,589 is anticipated for Volkswagen.

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Cox points out that a strong economy, low-interest rates and low unemployment have been the primary drivers of the solid numbers. Those are unlikely to change anytime soon.

Nissan’s sales include Nissan and Infiniti brands. GM’s include Chevy, GMC, Cadillac and Buick. Ford’s include Ford and Lincoln. FCA includes Fiat, Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge. Toyota includes Toyota and Lexus. Hyundai Kia includes Hyundai, Kia and Genesis. Honda includes Honda and Acura. VW includes Volkswagen, Porsche and Audi. These are the car models that Americans keep the longest.

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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.