The auto industry reports Q1 sales, and they’re really, really bad

Enlarge / Now might be a great time to buy a car, if you need one and still have a job. (credit: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

On Wednesday, the auto industry started reporting its sales results for the first quarter of 2020. The industry's prospects weren't looking amazing even before the worst disease pandemic in more than a century, and 2019 saw new car and truck sales fall by 1.3 percent in the US. But those results look positively rosy compared to Q1 2020.

General Motors reports that for the first three months of the year, its sales were down by about 7 percent compared to the same period a year earlier. At Fiat Chrysler, the drop was 10 percent. Toyota's sales fell 9 percent. Subaru posted a 17-percent decrease over the quarter. Volkswagen sales fell by 13 percent, with a 14-percent drop at Audi and a 20-percent decline at Porsche. BMW sold 15-percent fewer cars in Q1 2020 than Q1 2019, with an even bigger 35-percent decrease at Mini. Nissan had a similarly dismal quarter, declining 30 percent, year on year.

Not everyone did quite so horribly. Mazda sales dropped by just 4.5 percent for the first three months of the year, and Kia actually managed to increase sales by about a percent, although Korean stablemate Hyundai posted an 11-percent drop in Q1 2020.

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