by Calculated Risk on 6/03/2020 01:48:00 PM

The BEA released their estimate of May vehicle sales this morning. The BEA estimated light vehicle sales of 12.21 million SAAR in May 2020 (Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate), up 40.0% from the revised April sales rate, and down 29.8% from May 2019.

Sales in April were revised up from 8.58 million SAAR to 8.73 million SAAR.

Click on graph for larger image.

This graph shows light vehicle sales since 2006 from the BEA (blue) and an estimate for May 2020 (red).

The impact of COVID-19 is significant, and it appears April was the worst month.

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

Note: dashed line is current estimated sales rate of 12.21 million SAAR.

Sales collapsed in the second half of March, and really declined in April.  However sales rebounded somewhat in May (but were still down almost 30% YoY).