by Wolf Richter
Wolf Street
Prices too high, automakers too slow cutting them from the pandemic spike. Stellantis sales plunged 20%, a fiasco.
Total new vehicle sales in Q3 – retail and fleet deliveries by dealers and automakers to end-users – fell by 5.0% year-over-year to 3.88 million vehicles. This reduced the sales gain over the first nine months to just 0.7%, according to the data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis today.
Sky-high prices, a result of massive price increases during the shortages, are preventing sales from happening. In the used vehicle market, dealers have responded by cutting prices to boost sales. Since mid-2022, used vehicle prices have dropped sharply, working off over half of the pandemic price spike.