After 20 consecutive months of positive growth, sales in the U.S. light vehicle market fell again in April this year year.
According to preliminary statistics from GlobalData, U.S. light vehicle retail sales fell 3.9% year-on-year to 1.32 million units in April, including 1.09 million retail sales and 229,000 fleet deliveries, down 17% and 17.4% year-on-year, respectively.
It is worth noting that in fact, the performance in April this year is still slightly higher than the historical average for the same period, and the year-on-year decline will fall again, mainly due to the release of pent-up retail demand and fleet demand last year as the supply chain and new vehicles recover, making this year's comparison base higher.
Therefore, according to J.D. Forecasts from Power, GlobalData, Cox Automotive, and S&P Global Mobility, measured at a seasonally adjusted annualized sales rate, continued to hold a relatively high level of 15.7 million units in the U.S. auto market in April.
Of course, it must be admitted that the US new car market is indeed showing signs of weakness at the moment.
Joys and sorrows are not the same
This can be confirmed by the performance of the six automakers that reported April sales, with Ford, Hyundai-Kia, and Mazda all seeing year-on-year declines.
While the Lincoln brand grew 24.2% year-on-year, sales of the larger Ford brand fell by 3.2% due to weak sales of the F Series and some crossovers and SUVs, dragging down the group.
比如,福特Bronco Sport销量同比下跌33%,Edge下跌29%,Escape下跌28%,Bronco下跌12%,F系列也同比减少7.2%。
As a result, even the Maverick compact pickup truck increased 84% year-on-year to 12,077 units, the combined sales of the three electric vehicles E-Transit, Mustang Mach-E and F-150 Lightning increased by 129% to 8,019 units, and the group's hybrid sales increased 60% year-on-year to 17,997 units.
Unlike Ford, April was the third decline for Hyundai-Kia this year, and it was the first time since July 2022 that all three of its brands had negative year-on-year declines.
The Hyundai brand's top three models all fell by 10% in April, with the Tucson and Santa Fe SUVs down 16% and 11% respectively, and the other sedan, the Elantra, also down 24%. As a result, even though Hyundai's electric vehicle sales increased by 26% year-on-year, and gasoline hybrid vehicles also increased by 29%, brand sales still increased by 3.1% year-on-year.
Sales of the Kia K5 plummeted to 333 units in April, compared with 5,035 units in the same period last year, dragging down sales of the entire Kia brand as a result of the temporary disruption of supply in the U.S. market due to the temporary disruption of supply in the U.S. market. However, in the future, with the recovery of inventory, K5 sales should be able to increase again, and Kia is likely to return to the growth track. Genesis' decline was due to lower sales of the GV70.
Mazda's decline was slightly larger than that of Ford and Hyundai-Kia, but the loss was only 1,226 units, not to mention that it has remained above 30,000 units for four consecutive months this year, which is a very good result for it.
Toyota, Honda, Subaru and Volvo are a different story.
With the supply chain basically getting rid of the dilemma since the end of last year, coupled with the resurgence of the hybrid market, April was the sixth consecutive month of double-digit growth in the United States. Honda's modest growth of 0.4% in April was also due to the recovery of new vehicle inventories and the hybrid market, while Subaru relied on the surge in sales of the Forester, which increased by 85% year-on-year to 17,850 units.
Electric vehicles are traded for price
While the overall market has turned down, the U.S. electric vehicle (including pure electric and plug-in hybrid) market has continued to maintain good growth.
Although the growth rate of electric vehicle sales in the United States has slowed down significantly in the past two years, it should be noted that this is under the premise of increasing the base of comparison, in fact, the monthly sales have hit a new high in the same period.
According to the latest data consolidated by the Argonne Lab, which is affiliated with the U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. electric vehicle sales in March (April not yet available) increased by 22.5% year-on-year to 135,035 units. This is the second-highest monthly result ever for the U.S. EV market, behind only the 141,055 units in December.
Behind such an outstanding performance is that in the face of a large amount of accumulated inventory, dealers began to sell electric vehicles at a relatively large discount in the first quarter, and some discounts even reached a 5% discount.
According to Cox Automotive, the average discount for electric vehicles in the United States in the first quarter was close to $6,000, which made the average transaction price of 11 electric vehicles lower than the average transaction price of $47,735 in the whole industry, and the average transaction price of the five lowest-priced electric vehicles was less than $41,000 (excluding shipping costs, but including federal government subsidies).
The five models are the Nissan Leaf, Nissan Ariya, Hyundai Ioniq 6, Tesla Model 3 and Toyota bZ4X.
In turn, the Nissan Leaf is priced at just $27,956, the Nissan Ariya, which has been discounted by nearly 30% in the first quarter, has dropped to $35,556, the Hyundai Ioniq 6 is priced at $36,506, and the Tesla Model 3 and Toyota bZ4X are priced at $40,547 and $40,646, respectively.
As a result, sales of some of these models increased significantly in the first quarter, such as the Ariya increased by 45% year-on-year to 4,142 units, and the Ioniq 6 increased by 1,542.3% year-on-year to 3,646 units (launched in March last year).
But as Stephanie Valdez Streaty, director of industry insights at Cox Automotive, explains, price reduction strategies are not sustainable in the long run.
And even with the significant price reduction of some electric vehicles, the average transaction price of electric vehicles in the first quarter was indeed 9% lower than the same period last year, but it was still as high as $55,167, which is still nearly $7,000 higher than the average transaction price of the entire automotive industry.
Perhaps, it is because of the high price, coupled with the low mileage, lack of public charging piles and other unfavorable factors, compared with electric vehicles, American consumers will prefer hybrid vehicles, its sales in the first quarter of this year were 319,000 units, only 31,000 less than electric vehicles, the former in terms of growth of 44.8%, almost twice the latter.