by Calculated Risk on 10/01/2024 05:00:00 PM

Wards Auto released their estimate of light vehicle sales for September: September U.S. Light-Vehicle Sales up Slightly on SAAR basis; Q3 Volume Down 1.9% (pay site).

Sales over the past six months have been mostly in negative territory even though inventory continued to rise. Affordability and a slowdown in fleet orders have been the bane to growth. September saw the continuation of gains in the most affordable segments, but it was more than offset by weakness among higher priced vehicles – a theme of the past two quarters. (Hurricane Helene also slightly dampened deliveries in September.) Despite downturns in Q2 and Q3 of 0.5% and 1.9%, respectively, Q1’s strong 4.9% increase was enough to keep year-to-date volume through September above the year-ago total, albeit less than 1%.

Click on graph for larger image.

This graph shows light vehicle sales since 2006 from the BEA (blue) and Wards' estimate for August (red).

Sales in September (15.77 million SAAR) were up 3.7% from August, and up 0.5% from September 2023.

Sales in August were slightly above the consensus forecast.

The second graph shows light vehicle sales since the BEA started keeping data in 1967.