Tomorrow Is April 2012 Auto Sales Day

GoodCarBadCar’s recap of U.S. and Canadian auto sales results begins tomorrow, Tuesday, May 1. Beginning with Auto Sales By Brand stories from north and south of the border, we’ll show April and year-to-date sales totals as well as the year-over-year change compared to April 2011 and the first third of 2011. Later in the day, best seller lists for America’s 20 leading cars, 10 top SUVs and crossovers, and five most popular trucks from April 2012 will be revealed.

As always, the coming days will see a UK Auto Sales By Brand post and one best seller list from across the pond, as well. Throughout the month, more best seller lists – for overall vehicles, luxury vehicles, and the same bunch for Canada – will be published. And segment-by-segment breakdowns get underway later in the week.

U.S. auto sales are expected to rise by a little more than 3% compared with April of last year. That should mean around 1.2 million new vehicles were sold in April, indicating a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 14.6 million new vehicle sales. Ford, General Motors, and Honda are expected to report declines. Nissan, Chrysler, Toyota, and Volkswagen will play a major role in making up the difference. Check out March’s brand totals ranked in order of volume here. April’s figures are being uploaded as we speak.

According to TrueCar, incentive spending was down in most quarters, although they say per-car spending at Honda rose 10.5% compared with last April and 8% compared with March just past. Still, that only puts Honda at about $2400 per car, significantly less than the nearly $3100 per car spent at Chrysler. Hyundai/Kia came in at just $1223.

Estimates can be thrown to the wayside tomorrow. Reporting from Ford and Chrysler should start things off in the morning. Niche manufacturers like Jaguar and Land Rover generally don’t issue releases until later in the afternoon. Use the dropdown menu at the top right of this page or at GCBC’s Sales Stats home to find monthly and yearly sales figures for each and every model on sale in North America. The database should be completely updated with U.S. numbers by later Wednesday.