{"id":238236,"date":"2023-01-30T16:01:29","date_gmt":"2023-01-30T21:01:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thedetroitbureau.com\/?p=238236"},"modified":"2023-01-30T16:01:39","modified_gmt":"2023-01-30T21:01:39","slug":"vehicle-sales-up-for-january-despite-ongoing-challenges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/2023\/01\/vehicle-sales-up-for-january-despite-ongoing-challenges\/","title":{"rendered":"Vehicle Sales Up for January Despite Ongoing Challenges"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

With talk of recession widely circulating as well as rising interest rates and prices driving up monthly payments, sales of new vehicles are expected to hold steady, if not rise a bit in January, sparking optimism about the outlook for the rest of the year and production increases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Buying
January new vehicle sales are expected to rise, largely due to fleet sales results.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Thomas King, president of the data and analytics division at J.D. Power, noted in a new forecast, supply chain disruptions continue but are becoming less severe. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is leading to an increase in the number of vehicles being delivered to dealerships and fleet customers,\u201d he said, noting inventory remains above 1 million units for the fourth consecutive month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis year is off to an encouraging start from an inventory and sales standpoint. Retailer profitability is softening as expected but remains well above historical norms. Looking forward to February, the industry sales pace will continue to be inventory constrained despite improving production levels.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Total sales increase in January<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Total sales for January are expected to increase 5.4%, while retail sales slide 1.7 percent. The seasonally adjusted annual rate of sales, or SAAR, reached 15.9 million units, according to J.D. Power and LMC Automotive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"New
While inventory levels are improving, new vehicle sales prices are expected to set a new record for January.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

However, the overall volume of new vehicles delivered to dealerships in January is still not sufficient to meet consumer demand, resulting in record transaction prices for the month, King said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New-vehicle transaction prices continue to rise \u2014 although the rate of growth continues to slow. The average price will set a January record of $46,437, an increase of 4.2% from a year ago,\u201d King said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

King said several manufacturers are directing a larger portion of their increased production to fleet customers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fleet sales have been more heavily inventory constrained than retail sales during the past several years, resulting in significant pent-up demand, according to King. Rising production levels now allow manufacturers to offer more support for their fleet customers while maintaining retail inventory levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Tow
New vehicle sales at the retail level are going to drop slightly in January.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Fleet sales are expected to total 183,300 units in January, up 59.4% from January 2022 on a selling day adjusted basis. Fleet volume is expected to account for 18% of total light-vehicle sales, up from 12% a year ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Truck\/SUVs are on pace to account for 78.7% of new-vehicle retail sales in January.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

EVs stir interest <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, Elizabeth Krear, vice president, electric vehicle practice at J.D. Power, said,
\u201cIn December 2022, 24.8% of new-vehicle shoppers said they were \u2018very likely\u2019 to consider purchasing an EV, which is 4 percentage points lower than November 2022. The softening correlates to gas prices dropping to the lowest levels in nearly a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cChevrolet once again emerged as the most-considered EV brand in December, breaking away from Tesla by 5 percentage points when Tesla saw all five models decrease in consideration,\u201d Krear added. The Lexus RZ was the most-considered premium model. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The affordability of EVs improved slightly during the past two months, after a four-month decline. This improvement is driven by the premium volume mix, which is closer to parity with ICE vehicles than mass market models, Krear said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New vehicle sales increase in January as fleet sales increase. Looking forward to February, the industry sales pace will continue to be inventory constrained despite improving production levels. The better production rate is good news for fleet buyers. Find out why at TheDetroitBureau.com. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20009,"featured_media":226844,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1347,7,8,5,1164,2648],"tags":[7525,9570,4618,9571,9569],"make":[],"post-state":[],"category_old":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238236"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20009"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238236"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":238239,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238236\/revisions\/238239"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/226844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238236"},{"taxonomy":"make","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/make?post=238236"},{"taxonomy":"post-state","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post-state?post=238236"},{"taxonomy":"category_old","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/category_old?post=238236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}