New light-vehicle sales slipped in June in the wake of the cyberattack that affected many dealers’ operations, according to a report from the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA).
Using data Wards Intelligence, NADA’s chief economist Patrick Manzi wrote that sales in June totaled a SAAR of 15.3 million units, down by 4.8 percent year-over-year and 4 percent from a month earlier as the cyberattack was estimated to cost the industry 50,000 unit sales during the two week time systems were down for dealers across the U.S.
Manzi noted “the impact to June’s sales caused quarterly sales to decline for the first time since third-quarter 2022. Sales for Q2 2024 totaled 4.075 million units, down 0.4 percent from Q2 2023.”
July Bounce Expected
But the decline is expected to be short loved as sales missed due to the CDK Global ransomware attack in June are likely to be recouped in July, so July 2024’s SAAR will see a boost compared with pre-cyberattack expectations, according to Manzi.
At the end of June 2024, new light-vehicle inventory on the ground and in transit totaled 2.82 million units. June’s final inventory number is up 3.4% compared to May 2024 and is the highest level since November 2020’s 2.88 million units.
Inventory is projected to be relatively flat throughout the summer months before increasing again in September and during the final months of the year. “We expect inventory to approach 3 million units by year-end,” stated Manzi.
Looking at 2024 as a whole, Manzi believes that new light-vehicle sales will rise by 2-3 percent from 2023 to finish the year with 15.9 million units sold.
Hybrid, EV Market Report
Through the first two quarters of the year, alternative-fuel vehicles represented 18.2 percent of all new vehicles sold, the NADA report stated.
As of the end of the second quarter, conventional hybrid vehicles saw their market share increase by 2.3 percentage points year over year to 9.1 percent, as plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs) increased their market share by 0.5 percentage points to 2.2 percent.
Meanwhile, battery electric vehicles (EVs) saw their market share slip by 0.2 percentage points to 6.9 percent. In terms of raw sales volume, hybrid and PHEV sales increased by 35.6 percent and 35.7 percent, respectively from the second quarter 2023. During this same time period, EV sales declined by 0.2 percent.
