Most upbeat were executives from General Motors Corp., which posted a 20.3 percent sales decline from a year ago but a 31 percent improvement over July's totals.

Much of the gain came from offering all buyers employee discounts on many models. GM said it plans to extend the employee discounts through Sept. 30.

Mark LaNeve, GM's vice president of North American sales, said there's hope that June and July were the trough for U.S. sales.

Overall, U.S. sales fell 15.5 percent, compared with August of last year, but rose 10 percent from July's dismal figures, according to Autodata Corp. The seasonally adjusted annual sales rate for August was 13.7 million, up from 12.5 million in July, the worst month in 16 years.

Chrysler LLC said its U.S. sales fell more than 34 percent, while Ford Motor Co. reported a 26.5 percent decline. Toyota Motor Corp.'s sales dipped 9.4 percent, and Honda Motor Co. saw a 7.3 percent slide.

Nissan Motor Co. was the only major automaker to report an increase over August 2007. Its sales climbed 13.6 percent.

But the increase over July buoyed most automakers, with sales executives saying that lower fuel prices were starting to ease consumers' minds. They also reported the market shifting a little bit back toward trucks and sport-utility vehicles, driven by incentives and lower gasoline prices.

Officials at GM and other automakers tempered their remarks by saying that they will face challenging conditions for the rest of this year and even into 2009, with the tight credit knocking buyers out of the market.