May was a heck of a month in the auto industry. A deluge of recall announcements flooded the news and continued to erode profits, but sales continued to pour in… for some companies.
Bentley doesn’t have to post massive overall sales to report a large percentage increase. From that perspective, it ranked among the biggest winners in May despite selling fewer cars than almost any other brand. In total, 233 new Bentleys rolled out of showrooms and into climate controlled garages last month, dwarfing the 75 reported by luxury rival Rolls-Royce. Of course, Bentley is opening chasing high volume for its segment while RR prefers to let sales remain low and slow in the name of exclusivity. 
Audi’s A6 sedan helped boost the brand to a respectable 26 percent increase last month, but it wasn’t the only vehicle with noteworthy contributions. The A3 is also proving to be an early hit as the third-most popular nameplate in Audi’s lineup. 
Still in the double digits, Infiniti posted a 31 percent gain in May. Nissan’s luxury brand actually saw sales decline for most if its nameplates. Currently, the Q50 is the strongest product in Infiniti’s portfolio, followed by the QX60. The G sedan is still being sold beside the new Q50, but its numbers are trailing off. 
Posting massive percentage gains is relatively easy when the numbers behind those changes are small. Jeep’s sales are hardly titanic in the industry as a whole – that would be Ford – but Chrysler’s utilitarian brand still sells the most of any individual Chrysler brand assuming Ram and Dodge are counted separately. Last month, the Cherokee compact crossover and Grand Cherokee both helped Jeep catapult its sales by 58 percent to just over 70,200. Chrysler is also in the process of tweaking the nine-speed automatic transmission used in the Cherokee to offer smoother shifts after owners complained that early gear changes are especially harsh.
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles’ luxury brand Maserati continued to enjoy strong sales in May with a whopping 406 percent increase over the same month last year. But the high-end Italian brand plans to go higher still with a lofty goal to expand its annual sales to 75,000 units by 2018. Last month, the company moved 1,144 cars thanks in part to its new mid-size Ghibli sedan. Before the brand reaches its four-year sales goal, it will release a production version of the Alfieri concept in coupe form that debuted in Geneva last March followed by a convertible and then a new GranTurismo. 
The brand named after all things small posted a small sales decrease this time around. Compared to last May, MINI’s volume is down four percent, but don’t let that get you down because that’s actually a big improvement compared to April. Looking back on the calendar by four weeks, the company was posting a woeful 40 percent drop that makes this month’s report seem less disappointing. Still, the company is lagging behind its 2013 sales by 27 percent through the first five months. 
Tesla’s sales apparently dropped by six percent in May to 2,350 units, although that figure should be taken with a grain of salt because Tesla doesn’t actually officially report monthly sales numbers. Tesla is moving into other markets to sell the all-electric Model S luxury sedan, but reports last month indicated that demand is cooling in the company’s domestic market. 
Even if Tesla U.S. sales did drop last month, the fluctuation was small. Unfortunately, the same isn’t true for Volkswagen’s U.S. performance. The people’s car brand saw its numbers sink by just over 15 percent in May, marking the 14th consecutive month of declines for the German brand in this market. News broke this week suggesting that the forthcoming seven-seat crossover based on the CrossBlue concept is being delayed by a bidding war between VW’s manufacturing facilities in Tennessee and Mexico. 
Volvo struggled in the U.S. last month as sales dipped by 21 percent, the second-worst of any brand in May. But Volvo’s poor U.S. performance isn’t representative of its global performance in the same time period. Despite struggling here, the brand reported a 13.4 percent increase thanks in large part to strong sales in China. 
There are only currently three Chrysler vehicles for sale: the 200 mid-size sedan, 300 full-size sedan and Town & Country minivan. Of those, the Town & Country was the only nameplate to post sales gains in May as volumes rose a healthy 37 percent. The 300 declined slightly, but the 200 took a 76 percent nosedive because dealers just starting to receive the newest generation, which features Fiat Chrysler Automobiles’ new nine-speed automatic transmission.