January sales: Automakers feel winter chill

Generally considered to be the slowest sales month of the year, January appears as though it will live up to its poor reputation in 2014.

Results are beginning to pour in, and they paint a rather bleak picture: hampered by the extreme winter weather in some regions, many automakers posted significant declines, including General Motors (down 12%), Ford (down 8%) and Volkswagen’s namesake brand (down 19%).

Still, there were a few bright spots. Buoyed by demand for the Forester, Subaru set a January sales record, while Chrysler saw volume increase by 8 percent and Nissan sales climbed 12 percent.

Below are early sales numbers – check back often over the course of the day, we’ll update the list regularly as automakers continue to report their results.

January’s Numbers

- Acura
- Audi flat at 10,101
- BMW
- Buick down 1% to 13,278
- Cadillac down 13% to 11,386
- Chevrolet down 13% to 119,089
- Chrysler up 2% to 21,113
- Dodge down 19% to 34,905
- Fiat up 29% to 3,222
- Ford down 8% to 148,671
- GMC down 10% to 27,733
- Honda
– Hyundai up 1% to 44,005
- Infiniti up 26% to 8,998
- Jeep up 38% to 41,910
- Jaguar
- Kia
- Land Rover
- Lamborghini
- Lexus
- Lincoln up 43% to 5,973
- Maserati
- Mazda
- Mercedes-Benz
- MINI
- Nissan up 10% to 81,472%
- Ram up 24% to 26,033
- smart
- Subaru up 19% to 33,000
- Toyota
- Volkswagen down 19% to 23,494
- Volvo

Note that last month’s highlights and lowlights listed below are merely a selection of some of the month’s bigger movers.

Highlights (sales up > 40%)
Buick Encore up 570% to 2,366
Chevrolet Corvette up 149% to 2,261
Lincoln MKZ up 368% to 2,122
Nissan Leaf up 93% to 1,252
Subaru Forester up 64 % to 10,771

Lowlights (sales down > 25%)

Ford C-MAX down 48% to 1,418
Volkswagen Passat down 30% to 6,236
Dodge Dart down 29% to 5,051
Chevrolet Malibu down 25% to 11,822