Automakers paint smaller sales decline as progress

But when that indicator is automobile sales, and that industry has been slogging through its worst run in decades, a 28 percent slide somehow doesn't seem that bad.

In June, Americans bought 859,847 cars and light trucks according to data released by automakers on Wednesday and compiled by AutoData Corp. That's the smallest monthly sales drop since September. And although the industry hasn't seen a sales increase in nearly two years, it was enough for auto executives to — ever so cautiously — begin to spot green shoots amid the rusted steel.

“The tide seems to have shifted in recent weeks,” said Jim Farley, head of marketing and communications at Ford Motor Co., the only American automaker not to have taken government bailout funding.

The second-largest U.S. automaker's sales declined just 11 percent from a year earlier. That's by far the best performance of any major automaker, a performance Farley attributed to the quality of its new vehicles rather than any gains from disgruntled former customers of bankrupt General Motors Corp. and Chrysler.

And although GM and Toyota Motor Corp. saw more substantial dips, of 33 percent and 32 percent, both enjoyed improvement over recent months' dismal results, which rank among the weakest in their histories. That prompted executives at the two automakers to suggest that the worst is officially over.

“We feel pretty strongly that the bottom was hit earlier in the year,” said Mark LaNeve, head of sales, service and marketing at GM, who fingered February, when sales declined 41.4 percent.

With spring finally here along with the long-anticipated bankruptcies of Chrysler and GM, even the analysts seemed ready to call the end of bad times. “It is unlikely things will get any worse,” said Jesse Toprak head of industry analysis at Edmunds.com.

Not that June was all that great.

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