Used retail sales were up 9 percent in March, hitting 1.66 million vehicles sold according to the Cox Automotive analysis of vAuto Live Market View data. This is an increase from the 1.52 million reported in February and the largest monthly amount sold in four years.
“March is historically the strongest month of the year for used-vehicle retail sales,” said Scott Vanner, manager of Economic and Industry Insights at Cox Automotive. “This year, the combination of tax refunds and tariff talks pushed March sales to the highest level since 2021, with a significant double-digit increase over last year.”
New vehicle sales also followed suit as they increased both month over month and year over year.
A flurry of sales towards the end of March led the 30-day weekly sales pace to grow 17.2 percent compared to February and 11.9 percent versus March 2024. Pace increased nearly every week throughout the month with import tariffs creating extra sales pressure in the final week.
Inventory is Tightening
As sales numbers increased, dealers began to see a separate impact of new import tariffs, decreases in inventory. New vehicle supply was at 2.69 million units to begin April, a decrease of 10.2 percent from the 2.99 million units in March. This is also down 2.4 percent from a year ago.
This also caused the estimated new-vehicle days’ supply to drop to just 70, down from 91 days at the end of February. Much of this drop in supply occurred during the rush at the end of March. Some of the automakers with the tightest inventory in April are Lexus and Toyota who only have an estimated 30- and 32-days’ supply respectively. Honda and Subaru are below the national average as well sitting at 46- and 49-days’ supply themselves.
Used vehicles saw similar declines in inventory, but not as drastic as the ones affecting new vehicles. Supply was at 2.14 million units at the start of April, down from 2.18 million units in March, but down just one percent year over year. Used vehicle days’ supply did still drop to 39, the tightest it has been since 2021.
Vehicle Pricing Stable
Even though both saw an increase in sales, the used and new vehicle markets did not completely mirror each other in March pricing. New vehicles average transaction price (ATP) in March was $47,462, down from $48,272 in February. Used vehicles on the other hand saw a slight increase to an average listing price of $25,180, up from $25,011.
For new vehicles, Ford saw the biggest decrease in price as average listings dropped by $599, most likely in conjunction with their announced employee pricing deals. On the other end were Honda and Toyota, who both saw listing prices increase slightly, by $212 and $187 respectively.
Pricing for both markets is still relatively stable year over year with new vehicle ATP up 1.9 percent and used vehicles down one percent. How long that stability lasts remains to be seen however, as import tariffs and tightening inventory threaten to raise pricing throughout the rest of 2025.
EV Sales Up
Electric-vehicle sales also saw a sales increase in the entirety of Q1, with nearly 300,000 new EVs sold according to a report from Kelly Blue Book. This is up 10.6 percent year over year with about 7.5 percent of total vehicles sales in Q1 coming from EVs.
Those sales increases were not the same across the board though as Telsa saw a 9 percent decrease in total sales volume from Q1 2024. The EV brand still moved 128,000 units, nearly half of all EV sales in the quarter, but that was still down 26 percent from its peak in 2023.
Meanwhile brands such as Porsche, Toyota, Volkswagen, GMC and Volvo all had growth of over 100 percent year over year. General Motors, in particular, had an impressive quarter, selling over 30,000 EVs.
Despite the strong overall first quarter, the future of EVs is still uncertain. With tariffs impacting not just automotives but specifically aluminum, there’s no telling what effect this will have on EV pricing and demand in the coming months.
“The year certainly started strong,” said Cox Automotive Analyst Stephanie Valdez Streaty. “But the road ahead will be anything but smooth.”
