November Auto Sales Forecast Down First Time Since 2009

Although Black Friday promotions lift sales month-over-month, Edmunds analysts say November signals a sales slowdown through the end of 2018. The firm forecasts that 1,376,253 new cars and trucks will be sold in the U.S. in November for an estimated seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of 17.3 million. This reflects a 1.3% increase in sales from October 2018, but a -1.3% decrease from November 2017.

This month marks the first drop since 2009 in November sales, which have grown year-over-year in part due to increasing demand following the Great Recession, and partially because November is becoming a bigger sales month as automakers and dealers cash in on Black Friday.

Although sales remain healthy, increasing market saturation, rising transaction prices and elevated interest rates continue to create problems for all automakers. This probably will continue into 2019, perhaps for all of 2019 AutoInformed opines as the illusion of the stimulus effect of the Trump tax cuts for the wealthy morphs into the reality of declining middle-class wealth.

“Retailers have been pushing Black Friday car deals through the entire month of November, so unless they decide to pull out all the stops in the 11th hour, this is likely going to be the first time we see November sales take a dip in nearly a decade,” said Jeremy Acevedo, Edmunds’ manager of industry analysis.

Edmunds estimates that retail SAAR will come in at 14.3 million vehicles in November 2018, with fleet transactions accounting for 17.2% of total sales. An estimated 3.0 million used vehicles will be sold in November 2018, for a SAAR of 39.8 million (compared to 3.3 million —  or a SAAR of 39.6 million —  in October).

For the first time, estimates for a struggling, under SEC investigation Tesla are included in the Edmunds retail SAAR calculations, volume forecasts and market share estimates for November.