Honda Civic Named Top Overall Ethnic Vehicle Six New “Luxury Growth” Categories Awarded
The Fourth Annual Diversity Volume Leadership Awards (DVL Awards) ceremony showed the tremendous impact that ethnic car buyers have on the economy and brought awareness to the lack of diversity that still remains present in the automotive industry.
With ethnic car buyers growing at rapid rates, the dealer body is still lacking accurate representation from minorities. “Some thirty percent of new vehicle purchases are made by multicultural consumers but only six percent of dealerships are minority owned,” said National Association of Minority Automobile Dealers (NAMAD) President Damon Lester. “That means 18,000 dealerships exist in the USA and just 1,100 are minority owned.”
Through the DVL Awards on January 13, 2019 at the Westin Book Cadillac Hotel, ahead of the North American International Auto Show, NAMAD and IHS Markit have partnered to celebrate brands that are driving sales leadership with ethnic consumers, while also addressing and educating the industry about the necessity of a dealer body that reflects the United States’ increasingly diverse population. The Awards Ceremony was hosted by former Detroit area newscaster Lauren Sanders and brought together scores of top automotive industry executives.
Winners of the prestigious DVL Awards demonstrated the highest new vehicle registrations with ethnic, women, millennial and LGBT consumers. This year’s awards were based on an analysis of data from IHS Markit of more than 13 million personal new vehicle registrations for the 2018 model year (October 2017 through September 2018).
“The initial goal of the Diversity Volume Leadership Awards was to create awareness within the U.S. auto industry of the top vehicles purchased by ethnic consumers, women, LBGT consumers and ethnic millennials,” said Marc Bland, vice president of diversity and inclusion, IHS Markit. “We’re honored to recognize these top models and their respective manufacturers in support of their efforts to reach the growing diverse consumer groups. This leads to our current enhancement for the 2019 Awards — the addition of Luxury Growth Leaders by brands.”
This year, NAMAD and IHS Markit honored American Honda with the “Top Overall Ethnic Vehicle” DVL Award, for the third year in a row. “Top Overall Ethnic Vehicle” is the most sought-after Diversity Volume Leadership honor for automotive brands dedicated to driving sales leadership with Asian, Native American, Hispanic and African American car buyers.
Introduced at the 2018 DVL Awards, NAMAD and IHS Markit continue to research, document and honor the buying power of the LGBT community, with Awards for Volume Leaders (Ford F-Series) and Luxury Volume (Lexus RX).
It should be noted that the Lexus RX swept every segment of the Luxury Volume Leaders awards category.
