Subaru has just teased the new WRX and is working on its first electric vehicle too, but while the Japanese automaker does some pretty cool stuff, it has been hampered by the global semiconductor chip shortage, just as so many other manufacturers have. It's causing issues with production, and these issues are reflected in the company's second-quarter sales figures. Subaru of America is reporting 42,877 vehicle sales for June 2021, a massive 20.5 percent decrease compared to June 2020, and places the blame for this directly on the microchip shortage. But overall, Subaru is once again doing pretty well, all things considered.

Although year-on-year sales for the month of June have dropped by over a fifth, second-quarter sales reached 321,250, a 20.3 percent gain compared to the same period last year. "Given our inventory at this time, we were pleased with the June sales results our nimble retailers worked hard to deliver, and we thank them for their efforts," said Thomas J. Doll, President and CEO, Subaru of America, Inc.

The best performing model for June was once again the Subaru Outback with 16,394 sales, an increase of a whopping 60 percent compared with June 2020. The aforementioned WRX and its high-performance STI sibling increased sales by 8.5 percent to 2,354 units.

For the first six months of the year, the Forester recorded an 11.8 percent increase in sales while the Outback and Crosstrek both increased by 40 percent compared to the second quarter of 2020. The just-released BRZ was a stand-out model too, but not for the right reasons. Just one unit was shifted last month compared to 238 in June 2020, but we expect these figures to jump a lot as the second generation is introduced.

Meanwhile, the Legacy saw a drop of just three units compared to June 2020 while the Ascent dropped by 14.6 percent for the month of June to 5,192 units. Hopefully, the chip shortage is resolved soon, because there's clearly lots of demand for Subaru models once again, just not enough inventory.