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Small Cars and Hybrids Have Become Sales Champs

Small Cars and Hybrids Have Become Sales Champs

By Jim Henry

An analysis of first-half sales numbers shows a dramatic contrast between the biggest-volume percent gainers and losers. The gainers are mostly cars, many with four-cylinder variants that get around 30 mpg on the highway or above. The percent losers are mostly trucks. It was easy to come up with a Top 15 list of big-volume percent losers, based on models that accounted for at least 50,000 units in the first half last year. However, there weren't 15 big-volume gainers that met the same criteria. Nor were there any all-new vehicles without a year-ago comparison that qualified. Another difference was that the biggest losers lost a higher percentage of year-ago sales than the gainers gained. Here's a list of the Top 13 biggest percentage gainers for the first half of 2008, versus the first half of 2007: