Daily 5 report for Sept. 5: Ford joins the hybrid-powered gain in August U.S. sales

The seven automakers that continue to be transparent about their monthly U.S. sales results piled up a combined 13 percent gain in August while analysts expected overall deliveries to rise 7 to 8 percent.

Ford Motor Co. said its sales rose 13 percent to 181,603 vehicles. Like most of the Asian brands that reported on Wednesday, Ford generated robust gains from hybrids — up 50 percent to 16,394 deliveries. Among electric-only vehicles, Ford said sales rose 29 percent to 8,944 vehicles.

This trend seems likely to last through the month with a boost from Labor Day incentives. So a strong second quarter appears to be realistic for the U.S. market.

In other news today, General Motors named a new board member, Al Kelly, the recently retired CEO of Visa. With this appointment, 12 of GM's 13 board members are considered to be independent.

Also on the GM front, Molly Boigon reports today about the changing timeline for GM's investment in Lithium Americas. It's more evidence of the rapid industry rethink on EVs.

Finally, in case you missed this story about the popularity of old imported vehicles by Richard Truett earlier today, it's a great read, particularly for auto dealers.

In Friday's report, we'll get a good look at the mood of U.S. auto dealers in the third-quarter Cox Automotive Dealer Sentiment Index poll.

That's it for now. Have a great rest of your day!