Despite a drop in sales of its Chattanooga-made Passat, Volkswagen of America, Inc. boosted its August sales by 9 percent from a year ago as the German auto maker outpaced other car makers in its sales gains last month over a year ago.
VW reported sales of 32,015 units delivered last month, up from 29,384 in August 2016.
VW sales of the Chattanooga-made Passat in August totaled 5,714, down 22.7 percent from the same month a year earlier. VW delivered 2,807 units of its Chattanooga-made Atlas SUV last month. The new Atlas was introduced this spring.
August marked the first full month of sales for the all-new 2018 Volkswagen Tiguan, which sold 2,516 units. Volkswagen said it will continue sales of the current generation Tiguan and will introduce the 2017 Tiguan Limited, based off the original platform.
The 9 percent sales gains in August for VW outpaced General Motors, which was up 7.5 percent over last August, and Toyota, which recorded a 7 percent sales gain.
Other car makers said sales were down in August, which ended the month with sales in Texas hurt by Hurricane Harvey.
Nissan's sales in August dropped 13 percent and Fiat Chrysler's sales were down 11 percent last month. Ford's sales dropped 2 percent in August.
In the first seven month of the year, VW sales overall were up nearly 6.4 percent to 220,344 units.
But Passat sales during the first seven months of 2017 were down by 1.6 percent to 45,994.
In the first seven months of 2017, VW Passat and Atlas deliveries from the Chattanooga plant total 54,130 vehicles, which remains well below the production capacity at the VW assembly plant.