U.S. Automakers Dig Out of a Pandemic Hole as Prices Soar
- Higher trade-in values boosted new-car sales in third quarter
- Average new-vehicle prices reached record $35,655 in September
Retail sales, which exclude deliveries to fleet buyers such as rental-car companies, probably grew year over year in September.
Photographer: David Paul Morris/BloombergAutomakers are climbing out of the ditch they fell into this spring, with U.S. auto sales expected to rebound strongly in the third quarter thanks to cheap borrowing costs and a shift toward private transportation amid the pandemic.
The seasonally adjusted annualized selling rate likely reached 15.7 million new vehicles in September, down 1.6 million from a year ago, according to researcher J.D. Power. Retail sales, which exclude deliveries to fleet buyers such as rental-car companies, probably grew year over year in September, the first time that’s happened since February thanks to a couple of extra selling days on the calendar.