With 2023 firmly in the rearview mirror, Cox Automotive is sharing its U.S. auto market forecast for 2024. And if you're looking for a return to normalcy, it's a forecast you'll like. Cox Automotive's Forecast: 2024 predicts a "welcome return to normalcy" in 2024 after four years of everything but normal. In fact, Cox is predicting 2024 will be the best year for car buyers since the pandemic, with more options to choose from, better deals and easier access to online buying tools for both American consumers and fleet buyers.
"A decade from now, when we look back at the years immediately following the global pandemic of 2020, we'll be awed by the dramatic swings and unprecedented circumstances the economy and auto market endured," said Cox Automotive Chief Economist Jonathan Smoke. "To name a few, we saw historic appreciation in vehicle values, unimagined drops in supply, and interest rates moving from all-time lows to 23-year highs at an unforgiving pace. The past four years have been chaotic, even by auto industry standards, and have shifted many normal seasonal patterns out of whack, which adds to the difficulty of forecasting what comes next."
Cox says its Automotive Economic and Industry Insights team sees the U.S. market being steered by five key themes in the year ahead - all of them pointing to a return to normalcy with nothing in Cox's data suggesting surges in any direction, as the industry witnessed in 2021 and 2022. Themes include slow growth but no recession and increasing inventory which will place downward pressure on prices.
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