DETROIT — June auto sales weren’t as bad as some predicted, but the situation facing the automakers remains grim: Buyers want gas-miser cars, and not even car-heavy Toyota has enough of those to satisfy demand.
Total auto sales were down 18.3% compared with June 2007, coming in at 1.45 million, according to Autodata. Sales could have been higher, said officials at General Motors, (GM) Ford (F) and Toyota, (TM) if the automakers had enough four-cylinder engines.
“For the last 120 days, at least, with higher availability on some of our cars and crossovers, we would have sold more vehicles,” says Mark LaNeve, GM head of North American sales and marketing. The industry could have sold about 40,000 more cars in June, and GM would have captured 8,000 to 10,000 more buyers. “We have been outright constrained in some cases where dealers were just out of cars. Certainly, we would have done better.”
Once gas prices topped $3.50 a gallon, the automakers said, the shift away from gas guzzlers accelerated. But sales have been hurt by the weak housing market and concerns about the economy.