American Vehicle Sales, Q1 2023 – With Numberz!

Don’t say we don’t read yer comments. Last week’s report on the state of American car sales during the first quarter of this year was absent the usual Excel chart o’ numbers thanks to a phalanx of manufacturers choosing to release figures at their leisure. 

Here’s the chart, nerds – complete with snazzy up and down arrows.

Longtime readers may recall Tim Cain, a sales analyst who fussed over (as he liked to call it) the ‘free and frequent’ availability of data spewing forth from carmakers in this country. Flashforward to 2023 and we find the data is still free but a lot less frequent. And time marches on.

With all hands now reporting their performance for Q1, talking heads are continuing to revise their estimates for the seasonally adjusted annualized rate of vehicles in 2023. For us normal people, that’s roughly the number of cars expected to sell this calendar year. Estimates are trending downward, from 16.2 million in January to something in the neighborhood of 14.8 million at this juncture. That’s still about a million vehicles ahead of estimates one year ago, a number which proved to actually be in the ballpark once all was said and done.

It is worth noting that Q1 of 2022 was plagued by the double whammy of Omicron hang-wringing and troublesome parts shortages, so we’ll refrain from mindlessly bleating that double-digit percentage hikes in sales volumes at certain brands mark anything of a turning point. Rather, we can read into these digits as some semblance of normalcy returning to new car sales – at least for some dealerships which can manage to snag a bit of inventory.

Oddities? Fiat outsold Karma Automotive by a mere 8 units, bringing to mind questions about brand futures and the like. Hyundai and Kia are on an even keel, separated by just 313 units which will surely further the sibling rivalry. And contained in those GM numbers? Almost 1,000 Lyriq all-electric SUVs. 

[Image: Cadillac]

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