Nissan Fuel Pump

Gas price drop gives Nissan, Ford, GM lift

DETROIT— Gas prices have hit a sweet spot for U.S.-based automakers. They’ve fallen enough to spur pickup truck sales, yet remain so high that newer small cars with good gas mileage are selling, too.

That made June a good month for General Motors and Ford, which have traditionally relied on truck sales and now have strong lineups of smaller, fuel-efficient models as well.

Franklin-based Nissan Motor Co. said sales rose 11.4 percent on strong demand for smaller vehicles. Sentra compact car sales rose nearly 31 percent, for instance.

Among other Asian car manufacturers, Toyota and Honda couldn’t take advantage, however. Their sales plummeted more than 20 percent each as they ran short of cars because of the ongoing problems from the March earthquake in Japan.

Industry analysts expect overall U.S. sales to rise 13.5 percent from last June, to around 1.1 million cars and trucks. Automakers were reporting June sales throughout the day on Friday.

GM said that cheaper gas lured more pickup truck buyers into showrooms.

In the Nashville area, average gas prices at the pump were $3.38 a gallon on Friday, down 20 cents a gallon from a month ago.

With prices like that, Chevrolet Silverado sales rose 5 percent and GMC Sierra sales up 8 percent compared with a year earlier nationally.

Sales of Ford’s F-Series pickups rose 7 percent, while Chrysler reported a 35-percent increase in Ram truck sales

“There is a certain portion of consumers who react to gas prices almost on a daily basis, and they decide what to buy based on those prices,” said Jesse Toprak, vice president of industry trends and insights for car pricing site TrueCar.com.

Even Nissan benefited on the pickup front. Sales of its Frontier small pickup rose 51 percent.

Even with sales rebounding, there is some concern about the strength of the recovery. Don Johnson, GM’s vice president of U.S. sales, said he expects total industry sales to be at the low a range of 13 million to 13.5 million vehicles.

J.D. Power and Associates lowered its full-year sales forecast from 13 million vehicles to 12.9 million.

Johnson blamed stubbornly high unemployment, and suggested that many Americans will motor along driving older cars.

The average car on the road now is 10.6 years old, according to the Polk research firm.

“Things aren’t quite as healthy in the current environment as expected earlier this year,” said Jeff Schuster, J.D. Power’s executive director of global forecasting.

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