by Calculated Risk on 10/02/2020 08:15:00 PM

The BEA released their estimate of light vehicle sales for September this morning. The BEA estimates sales of 16.34 million SAAR in September 2020 (Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate), up 7.6% from the August sales rate, and down 4.3% from September 2019.

Click on graph for larger image.

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

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

Since April, sales have increased, but are still down 4.3% from last year.

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

Note: dashed line is current estimated sales rate of 16.34 million SAAR.

Sales-to-date are down 18.8% in 2020 compared to the same period in 2019.

In 2019, there were 12.70 million light vehicle sales through September.  In 2020, there have been 10.31 million sales.