Cox Automotive experts provide unique insights and perspectives to help you make the most of NADA2025 and the year ahead.
Jonathan Smoke, SVP & Chief Economist, shares his unique perspective on the themes that shaped 2024 and explains why he is optimistic about next year.
Greetings,
Since I presented our industry outlook at NADA 2024, it has been yet another chaotic yet exciting year in the automotive industry.
And though we still have a couple of months left in the calendar year, it’s safe to say that many of the themes identified have held true:
- Slow growth, but better than a recession
- For the economy and the auto market, we thought we were only capable of just 2% growth but it looks like we’ll get 2.7%.
- Consumers winning with vehicle supply increases
- As we entered 2024, new supply was back to spring 2020 levels, which favors consumers and leads to lower prices, and that’s what we’ve continued to see.
- Bidding farewell to the seller’s market we’ve come to know
- Higher supply means further deterioration in new vehicle grosses and dealer profitability.
- More in ’24 for the EV market
- We did reduce our pure EV forecast to make room for a more robust hybrid forecast, but we have seen more models, more discounting, and more marketing effort.
- One of the most normal years of car buying in a long time
- Normalization dominates several trends especially in the used car market and is looking to be the best year for consumers since the pandemic.
To go deeper on each of these themes and to stay up to date on all of our insights, be sure to check out my latest content in Smoke on Cars in the Cox Automotive Newsroom.
Now, with our attention hyper-focused on NADA and beyond, my team and I will soon be sharing our forecast for 2025 based on the data and trends we’re tracking across the industry and economy.
We’ll examine the potential impacts of new economic policies on the market and provide forecasts for the new, used, and wholesale markets, focusing on electrification. Stay tuned for insights into the five key themes that will shape a transformative year.
For those of you planning on attending NADA, I look forward to seeing you at the show. Cox Automotive will be at booth #2306, so plan on stopping by. Until then, send me your questions by November 26 and stay tuned to this page to see my answers.
Our next installment of “Expert Outlooks” featuring my colleague Isabelle Helms, VP Enterprise Marketing & Communications, will release on December 10. You won’t want to miss it.
Jonathan Smoke
Chief Economist
Jonathan Smoke leads Cox Automotive’s economic and industry insights team, which tracks key metrics and trends impacting both the wholesale and retail markets for vehicles informed by the proprietary data from the company’s businesses and platforms. For 28 years, Smoke has focused on translating data and trends into relevant actionable insights for the industries that represent the biggest purchases that consumers make in their lifetimes: real estate and automotive. Smoke joined Cox Automotive in 2017.
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