New vehicle sales in US fell 1.3% in 2019 but still healthy

DETROIT — New automobile gross sales in the U.S. fell 1.3% last year, but the numbers tranquil handed the wholesome 17 million tag for the fifth straight year.

Automakers sold 17.05 million novel autos, trucks and SUVs in 2019. Despite the incontrovertible reality that investors spent more on autos, companies needed to prop up gross sales with file discounts, based on analysts.

Following a long pattern, 69% of as much as date autos sold last year were trucks or SUVs, with truck gross sales up 2.6% from a year previously. Car gross sales fell over again, by 10.1%, based on Autodata Corp.

Gross sales atGeneral Motorsfell 2.5% for the year as a 40-day strike by the United Auto Workers union decrease into inventories in the fourth quarter. Ford gross sales fell 3.2%, while Fiat Chrysler gross sales dropped 1.4%. Gross sales at Toyota fell 1.8% and Nissan gross sales tumbled practically 10%.

The Edmunds.com auto pricing space predicted that more than half the novel autos sold last year were SUVs, passing 50% market share for the key time.

Also for the key time, Fiat Chrysler’s Ram pickup beat the Chevrolet Silverado in beefy-year gross sales as GM retooled factories to built a brand novel version of the Silverado.

Electric automobile gross sales rose practically 37% last year to lawful over 236,000, Autodata reported.

Tesla reported world gross sales on Friday with out singling out the U.S. The Palo Alto, California, electric automobile firm said gross sales rose over 50% to 367,500.

Final year became out to be sturdy as uncertainty waned in talks over a transformation agreement with Canada and Mexico and development toward a transformation deal with China, said Jeff Schuster, president of world automobile forecasts for LMC Automobile, a consulting firm.

Schuster predicted steadiness this year but wrote that gross sales is on the whole a small bit decrease than in 2019.

Final year’s gross sales numbers defied the potentialities, especially because high curiosity charges and file costs squeezed some investors, said Jeremy Acevedo, senior manager of industry insights for Edmunds. “If 2019 taught us something, it’s you would possibly’t underestimate the energy of a convincing economy,” he said. Edmunds provides enlighten material for The Connected Press.

The frequent novel-automobile sale price in December hit an estimated $34,602, environment a file, based on J.D. Energy and LMC. Truck and SUV costs hit an estimated $36,935, rising $655 from 2018. Car costs averaged $27,461, a minute make bigger from a year earlier.

However the frequent incentive, or decrease price, per automobile became as soon as expected to realize $4,600, a file identify that’s up practically 7% from 2018, based on LMC and J.D. Energy.

Thomas King, president of analytics at J.D. Energy, said the file sale costs presentations that automakers are constructing the forms of autos that people deserve to capture. However the file incentive level “implies that there is tranquil too mighty offer relative to total query.”

Other main automakers reporting gross sales Friday included Honda, which rose 0.2%, and Hyundai, which became as soon as up 4.7%. Subaru gross sales rose 2.9%, with the maker of all-wheel-pressure autos reporting file gross sales for the 11th straight year. Volkswagen Community gross sales also rose in 2019, by 1.8%.