You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have, well, for Fiat Chrysler Automobiles a mixed year as the automaker Wednesday reported flat 2016 sales. The company said its Jeep division, however, ended the year as a bright spot with a six percent yearly sales gain thanks to a decent December from Wrangler, Grand Cherokee and Renegade.
Overall, for the full year, FCA said it sold 2,244,315 units which was about 8,500 vehicles less than 2015. Some of that decrease can be blamed on the company’s decision earlier in 2016 to stop production on several of its automotive lines. This led to sharp sales declines – especially in the latter half of the year – of vehicles like the Chrysler 200 (down 66%), and Dodge Dart (down 51%). FCA announced its plans last spring to shift away from automobiles and produce mainly truck and SUV vehicles for North America, and believes it will take sales lumps now in order to reap the benefits in 2017.
For December, FCA reported a 10 percent sales decrease in comparison with 2015 thanks to precipitous declines from the 200 (down 73%), Dart (down 74%), and the Town & Country SUV (down 97%). In comparison, General Motors’ December sales jumped 10%, while Ford gained .3%. One positive for FCA though, its retail sales were only down 2% for the month as fleet sales (down 34%) took the brunt of the punishment.
Four Jeep brand models were stars in FCA’s December stable, led by a 39% jump in Renegade sales as well as a 13% and 10% increase from Grand Cherokee and Compass respectively. Jeep Wrangler, which previously saw several months of sales declines, provided good news as well as it climbed back into positive territory with a 2% increase for the month.
Altogether the Jeep brand ended 2016 with 926,376 units sold, its fifth consecutive annual record, and was led by Renegades powerful 75% increase and Compass’ 35% jump. Grand Cherokee (up 8%) also performed well. While both Wrangler (down 5%) and Cherokee (down 10%) faded towards the end of 2016, they both still finished as FCA’s second and third top-selling vehicles in its entire field.
The automaker also hopes to improve on that performance for 2017 as it is investing around a billion dollars in infrastructure improvements at plants in Illinois and Ohio in order to bring even more Cherokees and Wranglers into the market. Plus, FCA said it expects its highly anticipated next-generation Wrangler to begin production sometime in November, which would definitely fuel late-season Jeep sales.
U.S. automotive experts believe overall 2016 sales will exceed 17.5 million cars industry wide, beating 2015’s total of 17.47 which would set a record for the second straight year.
