Ford and GM sales dropped in October, while those of Chrysler, Toyota, Honda and Nissan increased. Ford continues to see its car sales erode, down almost 20% from the same month last year. The Japanese automakers captured a larger percentage of market share at their US-based rivals’s expense. Chrysler increased its sales, and maintained its relative percentage of market share.

The chart to the right plots the relative share each of the top six automakers have in their combined October sales. The inner ring is based on 2003 data; the external ring on 2004. Note that both Ford and GM are losing share in this year-to-year comparison of October sales.

The instability in the oil and gasoline markets has yet to affect the sales mix of cars to trucks in the US market, which shifted only slightly (toward trucks) with an aggregate 39.1% to 60.8% car to truck mix. The chart at right shows the truck-car ratio of each of the six major vendors.