After rising eight years in a row, overall sales at the company have fallen 4.8 percent this year,
and its share of the market declined to 4 percent in May.
Hyundai Faces Tough Times as Buyers Go Big -
Andrew DiFeo can remember a time, just four years ago, when he could hardly keep enough cars on the lot at his Hyundai dealership in Florida.
The new models it is now rolling out include two luxury sedans sold under the Genesis brand
name; the Ioniq, a hybrid compact; and a redesign of the midsize Sonata, due next year.
last year, is rolling out a hulking model called the Atlas this year and has a compact crossover coming next year.
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles stopped making small and midsize cars last year and is converting two idled car plants to make Jeeps and trucks.
“We are very well aware of where the market is.”
Hyundai attributed last month’s sales decline to a reduction in sales of cars to fleet customers like rental car companies.
Just four years ago, vehicles classified as light trucks, which include S. U.V.s and most crossovers, made up half of the American market.
In the first five months of this year, 62 percent of all new vehicles sold were from the category.
In the first three months of the year, luxury car sales fell 12 percent, according to the researcher Autodata.
The company blamed sales incentives in the United States for a sharp drop in earnings in the fourth quarter of 2016,
and cited them as a factor when it reported another decline in the first quarter of this year.