Small And Midsize Luxury Car Sales In America - December 2016 & 2016 Year End

Automotive

The luxury car is not dead.

The luxury car isn't on life support. It's not breathing through a mask. The luxury car does not need a puffer.

OK, maybe it needs a puffer, otherwise known as a hefty incentive. Car buyers are increasingly not car buyers – they're crossover buyers. The BMW 3-Series and 4-Series lost 34,388 sales in 2016, year-over-year. BMW, however, made back 25,664 of those sales with the X1 and X3. 

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U.S. Car Sales Rankings By Model - 2016 Year End
U.S. Vehicle Sales Rankings By Model - 2016 Year End

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Mercedes-Benz lost 8913 sales via its C-Class nameplate, the best-selling premium brand car in America in 2016. But Mercedes-Benz added 19,970 sales with the GLC-Class. 

Lexus lost 24,050 ES, GS, and IS sales in 2016, but added 19,945 NX and RX sales.

Car sales, including luxury cars, were falling fast in 2016. But Americans still bought and leased plenty of them. And in many cases, the customer benefited from a better deal than they would have one or two years prior. 

Click Chart To Expand

Healthy discounts intended to move metal made most of these transactions much easier for the customer; more difficult to swallow for the automaker.

You can click any model name in the tables below to find historical monthly and yearly U.S. auto sales data. You can also select a make and model at GCBC's Sales Stats page. 

These tables are sortable, so you can rank luxury brand cars any which way you like. Mobile users can now thumb across tables for full-width access. Suggestions on how GCBC should break down segments can be passed on through the Contact page.

Click Column Headers To Sort • January 2017 • November 2016 • December 2015

Small/Entry  Luxury Car	Dec. 2016	Dec. 2015	% Change	2016 YTD	2015 YTD	% Change
Acura ILX *	1079	1960	-44.9%	14,597	18,531	-21.2%
Acura TLX	3621	3508	3.2%	37,156	47,080	-21.1%
Acura TSX	---	---	---	4	35	-88.6%
Alfa Romeo Giulia	29	---	---	36	---	---
Audi A3	2904	3252	-10.7%	31,538	35,984	-12.4%
Audi A4  ^	4320	3426	26.1%	36,987	31,831	16.2%
Audi A5 *	591	1000	-40.9%	8354	12,934	-35.4%
BMW 2-Series *	1085	2143	-49.4%	15,519	13,020	19.2%
BMW 3-Series	6740	5262	28.1%	70,458	94,540	-25.5%
BMW 4-Series	3634	5601	-35.1%	35,763	46,069	-22.4%
BMW i3	791	1422	-44.4%	7625	11,024	-30.8%
Cadillac ATS	2292	3451	-33.6%	21,505	26,873	-20.0%
Infiniti Q40	---	31	-100%	59	8605	-99.3%
Infiniti Q50	5794	4678	23.9%	44,007	43,874	0.3%
Infiniti Q60 *	1018	290	251%	3970	3949	0.5%
Jaguar XE	1162	---	---	6656	---	---
Lexus CT200h	968	1464	-33.9%	8903	14,657	-39.3%
Lexus IS	4432	5028	-11.9%	37,289	46,430	-19.7%
Lexus RC	1042	1711	-39.1%	11,165	14,784	-24.5%
Mercedes-Benz B-Class *	54	97	-44.3%	632	1906	-66.8%
Mercedes-Benz C-Class	7345	7023	4.6%	77,167	86,080	-10.4%
Mercedes-Benz CLA-Class	1876	1912	-1.9%	25,792	29,643	-13.0%
Volvo S60	2051	1486	38.0%	14,218	16,706	-14.9%
Volvo S60 Cross Country	42	104	-59.6%	571	287	99.0%
Volvo V60	333	296	12.5%	3407	4362	-21.9%
Volvo V60 Cross Country	240	202	18.8%	2725	2769	-1.6%
---	---	---	---	---	---	---
Total	53,443	55,347	-3.4%	516,103	611,973	-15.7%

Midsize Luxury Car	Dec. 2016	Dec. 2015	% Change	2016 YTD	2015 YTD	% Change
Acura RLX	192	159	20.8%	1478	2195	-32.7%
Acura TL	---	---	---	---	88	-100%
Audi A6	2016	2456	-17.9%	18,686	22,850	-18.2%
Audi A7	811	841	-3.6%	6558	7721	-15.1%
BMW 5-Series	2115	2985	-29.1%	32,408	44,162	-26.6%
Cadillac CT6	1293	---	---	9169	---	---
Cadillac CTS	1697	2441	-30.5%	15,911	19,485	-18.3%
Cadillac XTS	3129	3070	1.9%	22,171	23,112	-4.1%
Genesis G80	1354	---	---	6166	---	---
Hyundai Equus	8	201	-96.0%	1361	2332	-41.6%
Infiniti Q70	580	786	-26.2%	5872	8449	-30.5%
Jaguar XF	486	559	-13.1%	6665	5933	12.3%
Kia K900	80	162	-50.6%	834	2524	-67.0%
Lexus ES	6239	7856	-20.6%	58,299	64,969	-10.3%
Lexus GS	1325	3423	-61.3%	14,878	23,117	-35.6%
Lincoln Continental	1845	---	---	5261	---	---
Lincoln MKS	215	471	-54.4%	4951	6877	-28.0%
Lincoln MKZ	2650	3207	-17.4%	30,534	30,901	-1.2%
Maserati Ghibli	746	665	12.2%	7100	7922	-10.4%
Mercedes-Benz E-Class & CLS-Class	4851	5580	-13.1%	50,896	55,888	-8.9%
Volvo S80	13	176	-92.6%	644	1887	-65.9%
Volvo S90	1127	---	---	2756	---	---
Volvo XC70 *	232	432	-46.3%	5425	5118	6.0%
---	---	---	---	---	---	---
Total	30,354	35,470	-14.4%	308,023	335,530	-8.2%

Source: Automakers & ANDC
* vehicle also displayed in another GCBC segment breakdown
^ A4 includes Allroad, without which A4 sales were up 26% to 4009 in December; up 20% to 34,687 in 2016.
GCBC isn't here to break down segments, an impossible task for any group, but to display sales data for the sake of comparison. The more ways sales data can be displayed, the better. This explains why you'll see the Acura ILX here but also with mainstream cars like the Buick Verano, too, and the Audi A5 is also displayed with coupes and convertibles... because readers have wanted it both ways. Hyundai USA, not GoodCarBadCar, chooses to combine sales figures for the Genesis sedan and Genesis Coupe, forcing us to include the Genesis with volume-brand cars on pricing grounds before we even get to the "brand status" issue. The K900, Equus, CT6, Continental, and XTS are here not because of their size but because of their price points, their lack of direct comparability with the Mercedes-Benz S-Class. You can always find the sales results for EVERY vehicle and form your own competitive sets by using the All Vehicle Rankings posts.

RECOMMENDED READING
Small & Midsize Luxury Car Sales In America - January 2017
Small & Midsize Luxury Car Sales In America - November 2016
Small & Midsize Luxury Car Sales In America - December 2015
Top 25 Best-Selling Cars In America In 2016
U.S. Auto Sales Brand Rankings - December 2016 & Year End
Large Luxury Car Sales In America - December 2016 & Year End

Automotive