Chrysler’s European sales down by half

For October 2008, Chrysler sold a total of 5,265 vehicles in Europe – roughly half as many as in October 2007, despite the introduction of the Dodge brand. While October was a bad month for European auto sales, with GM and Toyota both falling by around one quarter of their October 2007 sales, on average sales only slipped 14.5%, and Chrysler had the worst showing (percentagewise) of any automaker on the Continent, slipping behind Tata in sales to be the smallest major seller. In contrast, European leader Volkswagen-Audi Group, whose sales were down just 8%, sold nearly a quarter of a million vehicles in Europe in October 2008, expanding its lead over PSA, which fell 16% to 145,500 vehicles. Daimler saw a 17% drop in sales, roughly equally spread across Mercedes and Smart. Toyota saw a 24% drop, hitting Lexus harder than the core Toyota brand.