By Charles Krome
There weren’t too many automakers celebrating the U.S. sales results for August, with Chrysler being the only high-volume automaker to see a year-over-year sales increase for the month. Even Hyundai and Kia fell on hard times, with the former seeing a sales drop for the first time since May of 2009 and the latter earning its first decline since June of last year.
But even when the South Korean brands appear to be losing, they’re still winning. Keeping in mind that Hyundai owns a controlling stake in Kia, the two combined to move 86,068 units in August, while Nissan (plus Infiniti) sold 76,827. Add those results to the South Korean’s very strong sales numbers from the first seven months of the year and, at this stage in the game, the Hyundai-Kia group has displaced Nissan North America from sixth place on the list of top-selling automakers here in the U.S.
The current score: 601,445 sales for Hyundai-Kia and 599,496 for Nissan-Infiniti.

