ARLINGTON, Va.—Total vehicle sales fell slightly from 14.1 million annualized units in November to 13.3 million annualized units in December, with monthly sales levels up 4.7% year-over-year.
"Rising interest rates, lingering supply chain issues, as well as enlarged raw materials costs forced suppliers to bolster prices, while higher price tags and general economic uncertainty pushed consumers to delay or rethink such purchases," said NAFCU Economist Noah Yosif. "JP Morgan research found the average car price rose by 42.5% in two years, while the University of Michigan’s Survey of Consumers showed car buying sentiment hit an all-time low in June on data going back to 1978.”
Car sales also fell slightly last month with 2.8 million annualized units sold. Light truck sales fell from 11 million annualized units to 10.5 million. Domestic production fell 12.3% in November, while inventory also fell to 0.56 months of sales.
‘Sentiment is Improving’
"While sentiment is improving with declining new vehicle prices, high rates continue to punish borrowers,” added Yosif. “Edmunds reports that nearly 17% of new car purchasers have monthly payments over $1,000 per month, compared to 7% two years ago. NAFCU anticipates a laggard improvement in auto sales during the first half of 2023, with more robust growth in the second half.”
Still Free in ’23! The Freshest CU Headlines. Right to Your Inbox.
The biggest, best and freshest news reporting in credit unions remains free in ’23! Each morning CUToday.info delivers its daily update offering the latest headlines and breaking news right to your email, with the easy-to-read headlines format allowing you to click on the stories that interest you most in order to learn more.
If you haven’t yet signed up for the new email solution on which CUToday.info has partnered with ResponseGenius, you can do so here. Signing up requires less than one minute of your time—and it’s free!
Please note that after signing up you may need to go to your Spam/Junk folder and mark the morning headlines email as safe. CUToday.info does not provide its list of readers and emails to outside parties, and we will not be contacting you to sell you an extended warranty or sending you any links so you may cash in on an inheritance you didn’t know was coming.
And did we mention it’s free?
Please note and/or make your IT department or email administrator aware the emails will be coming from the domains CUTodayinfo.com and CUTodayinfoReply.com.