3rd Quarter 2024 National Sales:  Winners and Losers

The Q3 sales numbers from most of the automakers came in finally, and it was a bit of a mixed bag.  Hurricane Helene certainly wreaked havoc on many of the big car markets across America at the worst possible time; the end of the month and the end of the quarter.  Those sales will likely be made up in October, along with additional sales from all the cars that were flooded and totaled.  Some new car dealers lost a lot of inventory to the storms associated with Helene, and those could be hard to replace, especially for Toyota and Lexus, both of which were short in supply already.  Add to that the Longshoremen strike, and the 4^th quarter could be challenging if this turns out to be a long strike.

When the smoke cleared, the auto industry was down roughly 13% from the 3^rd quarter of 2023.  Factors besides the hurricane was a year ago there were a lot of pent-up sales from the chip shortage, and this year spot-shortages of vehicles hurt sales at Toyota, Honda, and a few others.  Still, most dealers were overloaded with inventory and remain that way as we head into the final quarter of 2024 and the big yearend push we’ll see.  I will add that talking to the Car Pro Show dealers around the country, the month of September felt sluggish and was a bit of a struggle.  Falling interest rates will certainly be a welcome addition to everyone.

Looking at the 3^rd quarter, Ford beat out Toyota once again by a slim margin, Chevy came in 3^rd, and Honda and Hyundai rounded out the top 5.  Ford said electric sales were up 12% and hybrid sales were up 38% in the 3^rd quarter.  The Blue Oval boys announced free EV home chargers including installation for EV buyers starting now to try to relieve some of the over-supply of electrics on dealer lots.

The woes at Stellantis continued in the 3^rd quarter, and that hurt overall industry sales.  Dodge, Chrysler, Jeep, and Ram sales were off from 6% to 47% on the four brands.  In addition, Maserati was down also.  The one bright spot for Stellantis came from Fiat, up 117%, but to put it in perspective, that only accounted for a little over 100 sales per month in the 3^rd quarter across the entire United States.  I do see evidence Stellantis is going to step up incentives for Q4, which is badly needed.

Subaru extended its month-over-month sales streak to 26 straight months, and you know I’ve been rooting for Mazda all year and they celebrate a 25% 3^rd quarter increase from the same time a year ago.  Luxury vehicle sales were down as a whole, but we won’t see 3^rd quarter numbers from Mercedes-Benz, Land Rover, and Jaguar until later in the month.

Transaction prices neared $44,500 last month, which was almost $1,300 lower than September 2023.  This is due to rising incentives and bigger dealer discounts than seen after Covid and the microchip shortage.  According to reports, the incentives in September averaged from $3,000 to $5,400 at Jeep, Nissan, GMC, Ram, Ford, and Tesla.  Chevrolet, Kia, Hyundai, and Mazda averaged nearly $3,000 per vehicle, while Honda and Subaru hovered around $2,000 per vehicle.  Toyota with the shortages, only averaged $1,379 per vehicle including Lexus.

In a continuing trend, auto loans are getting longer at the same time monthly payments are getting higher. Falling interest rates could reverse both trends.  Also, pickups and SUVs accounted for over 80% of sales in the U.S. in Q3, while sedans and hatchbacks tallied just over 19% of total sales.

2024 3rd Quarter U.S. Auto Sales

Here are your winners & losers for the 3^rd quarter of 2024 versus the 3^rd quarter of 2023 and the percentage up or down:

Electrics:

As I have told you, I put no credibility in the reported sales of the all-electric automakers.  They only report estimates, not actual bona fide sales.  However, I will tell you what they reported for the 3^rd quarter, as ridiculous as the numbers look,  although I recommend you take them with a grain of salt:

• Tesla: 150,000 Down 3%
• Rivian: 20,900 Up 8%
• Polestar: 4,000 Up 90%
• Vinfast: 1,500 Up 900%
• Lucid: 1,200 Up 50%
• Brightdrop: 246 Up 602%
  

2024 3rd Quarter U.S. Auto Sales

1. Ford: 474,782   FLAT
2. Toyota: 461,879 Down 10%
3. Chevrolet: 419,801 Down 6%
4. Honda: 333,105 Up 10%
5. Hyundai: 210,971 Up 5%
6. Kia: 197,710 Down 6%
7. Nissan: 197,528 Down 1%
8. Subaru: 171,169 Up 5%
9. GMC: 151,865 Up 6%
10. Jeep: 144,963 Down 6%
11. Mazda: 110,966 Up 25%
12. Ram: 108,925 Down 19%
13. Volkswagen: 93,271 Up 6%
14. Lexus: 80,997 Up 8%
15. BMW: 78,128 Down 7%
16. Buick: 47,405 Up 8%
17. Audi: 46,752 Down 21%
18. Cadillac: 37,214 Up 4%
19. Acura: 33,109 Down 10%
20. Mitsubishi: 31,588 Up 42%
21. Volvo: 28,535 Down 12%
22. Dodge: 26,559 Down 43%
23. Lincoln: 25,713 Up 26%
24. Chrysler: 22,482 Down 47%
25. Genesis: 20,117 Up 4%
26. Infiniti: 14,540 Down 12%
27. Mini: 5,284 Down 33%
28. Alfa Romeo: 2,049 Down 29%
29. Lamborghini: 1,030 Up 3%
30. Bentley: 875 Down 3%
31. Maserati: 770 Down 21%
32. Rolls-Royce: 400 Down 24%
33. Fiat: 316 Up 117%

Photo Credit: Andy Dean Photography/Shutterstock.com