Labor Day Expected to Boost New Vehicle Sales in August, Edmunds Forecasts

Staff Report

Thursday, August 29th, 2019

The car shopping experts at Edmunds forecast that 1,599,264 new cars and trucks will be sold in the U.S. in August for an estimated seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of 16.6 million. This reflects a 14.3% increase in sales from July 2019, and a 7% increase from August 2018.

"New vehicle sales in August look a little healthier than usual thanks to Labor Day weekend falling earlier this year," said Jeremy Acevedo, Edmunds' senior manager of insights. "Market conditions are looking slightly more favorable than earlier this year thanks to a minor dip in interest rates, but we don't expect that to cause a major turnaround. August really just stole sales that are normally attributed to September."

Edmunds estimates that retail SAAR will come in at 14.4 million vehicles in August 2019, with fleet transactions accounting for 13.1% of total sales. An estimated 3.4 million used vehicles will be sold in August 2019, for a SAAR of 39.8 million (compared to 3.4 million—or a SAAR of 39.6 million—in July).

SALES VOLUME FORECAST, BY MANUFACTURER

           

Sales
Volume

August 2019
Forecast

August
2018

July 2019

Change from
August 2018

Change from July
2019

           

GM*

274,916

240,000

235,000

14.5%

17.0%

Toyota

243,164

223,055

209,204

9.0%

16.2%

Ford*

207,713

217,700

191,000

-4.6%

8.8%

Fiat Chrysler*

202,798

193,718

170,000

4.7%

19.3%

Honda

162,889

147,903

141,296

10.1%

15.3%

Hyundai/Kia

126,694

111,406

112,711

13.7%

12.4%

Nissan

108,902

112,376

98,880

-3.1%

10.1%

VW/Audi

58,713

53,162

50,558

10.4%

16.1%

Tesla

19,904

-

-

-

-

Industry

1,599,264

1,494,502

1,399,656

7.0%

14.3%

*GM sales totals for August 2018 are estimated, FCA, Ford, and GM sales totals for July 2019 are estimated

**NOTE: August 2019 had 28 selling days, August 2018 had 27 and July 2019 had 25.

MARKET SHARE FORECAST, BY MANUFACTURER

           

Market
Share

August 2019
Forecast

August
2018

July 2019

Change from
August 2018

Change from July
2019

           

GM

17.2%

16.1%

16.9%

1.1%

0.3%

Toyota

15.2%

14.9%

14.9%

0.3%

0.3%

Ford

13.0%

14.6%

13.8%

-1.6%

-0.8%

Fiat Chrysler

12.7%

13.0%

12.3%

-0.3%

0.4%

Honda

10.2%

9.9%

10.1%

0.3%

0.1%

Hyundai/Kia

7.9%

7.5%

8.1%

0.5%

-0.1%

Nissan

6.8%

7.5%

7.1%

-0.7%

-0.3%

VW/Audi

3.7%

3.6%

3.6%

0.1%

0.1%

Tesla

1.2%

-

-

-

-