Car Sales Jumped in September

By NICK BUNKLEY
NYT

DETROIT — General Motors, Ford Motor and Chrysler on Monday said their sales in the United States rose last month, signaling that the auto industry was a bright spot amid the nation’s economic uncertainty.

Chrysler reported the biggest gain, 27 percent, while G.M. sales were up 20 percent and Ford’s rose 9 percent. Over all, analysts and automakers projected that industry sales climbed to the highest level since April.

But Toyota and Honda continued to trail the rest of the industry, even though September was the first month since the March earthquake and tsunami in Japan that their plants were running at full capacity. Toyota’s sales in the United States dropped 17 percent, and Honda’s were down 8 percent. Nissan sales increased 25 percent.

“For G.M., all of the factors that say this is a good time to buy a new vehicle outweigh the bad news that appears to be slowing down the broader economic recovery,” Don Johnson, G.M.’s vice president of United States sales operations, said in a statement.

(More here.)