Cox Automotive’s Auto Market Report video delivers a comprehensive analysis of the current automotive market. Chief Economist Jonathan Smoke leads our effort to translate data and trends into actionable insights. This video covers a wide range of topics, including consumer spending patterns, consumer sentiment, retail vehicle sales, financing rates, supply dynamics, pricing trends and leading indicators from Cox Automotive’s extensive data ecosystem.

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Report Summary – July 9, 2024

The Cox Automotive Auto Market Report for July 9, 2024, highlights a mixed landscape. In recent months, consumer spending patterns have shown variability, witnessing a decline in May but an uptick in June. Consumer sentiment experienced a marginal increase in June before declining toward the month-end. The CDK software outage impacted retail vehicle sales, contributing to a drop in new and used car sales. While low APR financing rates increased in June, they fell in early July, and high average auto loan rates for 2024 have seen a decline this month. New-vehicle supply has increased, and used supply has also seen a rise. Price trends indicate a slight decrease in both wholesale and retail prices for Model Year 2021 vehicles. Leading indicators from Cox Automotive reflect a mixed performance, with some year-over-year declines in leads but improvements on a monthly basis and in unique credit applications per dealer. Service trends on Xtime have notably decreased by 30% year over year.

Consumer Spending Patterns

• In May, overall spending witnessed a year-over-year decline, covering all major categories. However, June experienced an upturn in total spending.

Fluctuations in Consumer Sentiment

• Consumer sentiment registered a slight increase of 0.6% in June, but noticed a decline towards the end of the month.

Impact of Software Outage on Retail Vehicle Sales

• The latest week reported a 9% drop in new car sales, and a 1% decrease in used car sales, attributed to the CDK software outage.

Low APR Financing Patterns

• Loan rates below 3% increased in June compared to 2023 but dipped in early July.

High Average Auto Loan Rates in 2024

• The average used rate has declined to 14.10% for the current month, whereas the average new rate has declined to 9.72%.

Supply Disruptions due to Software Outage

• New supply saw a year-over-year increase by 35 days and a week-over-week increase by 8%, while used supply witnessed a 2% rise in the past week.

Trends in Used Pricing

• The average Model Year (MY) 2021 wholesale price decreased 0.3%, and the retail price witnessed a weekly decrease of 0.4%.

Cox Automotive Leading Indicators

• Leads: Leads on Autotrader and Kelley Blue Book have dropped year over year for July, but the monthly comparison showed an increase on Autotrader and a minor decrease on Kelley Blue Book.
• Dealer Metrics: Dealer.com has reported a decrease in unique leads per dealer year-over-year for July for new and used vehicles, but a monthly increase in new and used leads. Dealertrack reports a 5% year-over-year increase in unique credit applications per dealer last week, with a week-over-week improvement.
• Service Trends: Service trends on Xtime displayed a 30% year-over-year decrease in completed appointments.

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.