Rising fuel costs hurt Big Three's sales

Chrysler said its truck and SUV sales fell 14 percent but sales of the 2007 Dodge Caliber, the replacement for the Neon, were strong and helped minimize losses on the car side. Chrysler’s car sales were down 1 percent for the month.

Ford’s SUV sales fell 21 percent, said the automaker’s U.S. sales analysis manager George Pipas. Even sales of the best-selling F-series trucks were down nearly 6 percent for the month. Overall sales of Ford, Lincoln and Mercury trucks and SUVs fell 7 percent.

Pipas said full-size trucks have withstood gas price increases in the past, but the company is watching closely to see what happens this time.

“The commercial demand, the businesses that buy the truck to get the job done, are supporting F-series sales in this environment, but some retail buyers are more cautious and seem to be delaying purchases,” Pipas said.

On the bright side, Ford’s car sales were up nearly 8 percent from last May. Ford said its Fusion midsize sedan posted its best sales month yet with 14,490 vehicles sold, or 18 percent more than April. Ford also said sales of its hybrids have grown 55 percent so far this year, while crossover sales are up 12 percent.

Ford aims to boost U.S. sales with an aggressive incentive plan that began Thursday. Nearly all of the company’s 2006 vehicles are eligible for zero-percent financing and a prepaid debit card that can be used to purchase up to $1,000 worth of gas, or $1,100 for some trucks and sport utility vehicles. The vehicles must be purchased before July 31.

GM Chairman and Chief Executive Rick Wagoner said Thursday that GM is trying to stick with its plan of lowering prices and relying less on incentives, but he acknowledged that could cost the company in the next few months and left open the possibility of matching Ford’s incentives.

“Everybody’s taking their measure of the market and finding out what works for them,” Wagoner said. “We’re trying to operate under a different strategy.”

GM is providing an incentive that caps consumers’ gas prices at $1.99 per gallon, but the program is only running in California and Florida so far. Ballew said GM wanted to test the program regionally before deciding whether to expand it.

Not all Asian brands fared as well as Toyota and Honda. Nissan Motor Co. said its sales were down 7 percent for the month as both cars and trucks saw declines. Nissan’s sales were down 3 percent for the year. Truck and SUV sales took a dive at South Korea’s Hyundai Motor Co., where they fell 34 percent from last May, but car sales were up 26 percent and the automaker’s sales were up 5 percent for the month overall.

The Associated Press reports unadjusted figures, calculating the percentage change in the total number of vehicles sold in one month compared with the same month a year earlier. Some automakers report percentages that are adjusted for the number of sales days in a month.

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