August proved to be a very difficult month for Toyota and the Detroit 3. Nissan Motor Co., on the other hand managed to post a solid gain in terms of its US Sales. Their sales are up 1 percent for the year to date. The company confirmed that its US sales rose by a huge margin of 13.6% in the month of August, to 108,493 vehicles, due to the increased demand for large trucks and SUVs.

Nissan-brand sales were up 14.2 percent to 97,417 vehicles in August, driven by a 32.6 percent jump in light-truck sales, Al Castignetti, who is the vice president and general manager of Nissan Division, told Reuters. (more…)

Honda Motor Co. is all set to launch the 2009 Honda Fit that will hit the automaker’s dealers on August 26, 2008. Earlier, it was slated to launch on October 1.

The automaker decided to bump up the launch of the subcompact car, as the company is practically sold out of the 2008 model.

“We basically increased supply as much as we could to meet demand, and we were still going to be sold out of the 2008 model,” said Honda spokesman Chris Martin. “We had to do something so that our dealers would not be without the small cars that buyers are seeking,” he added. (more…)

The Japanese automaker, Honda Motor Co. announced that it will cut production of some of the light trucks and crossover vehicles in coming days in the U.S. Hurt by the sky-high price of gasoline and consumer demand shift from larger vehicles, the automaker decided to cut the production of both the Odyssey minivan and Pilot by 10,000 units at its Lincoln assembly plant in Alabama.

The production cut will take place from August through October. In order to match production with consumer demand, Honda will close the Lincoln plant for two days on August and will cut second shift production at the plant every Friday in August through October. In the first half of this year, Honda built a total of 158,316 Odysseys and Pilots, down 2.4 percent from the same period in 2007. (more…)