Auto Sales Grew Slightly in Second Quarter

Most automakers on Tuesday, with the exception of Tesla, reported modest sales growth in the three months between April and June as high interest rates, persistently high vehicles prices, and uncertainty about the economy and the coming presidential election weighed on consumers.

Sales in late June were also slowed by disruptions at car dealers stemming from a cyberattack on a company that supplies software and data services to dealerships.

Cox Automotive, a market research firm, estimated that 4.1 million new cars and trucks were sold in the second quarter, up a little from the same period in 2023. In the first six months of 2024, 7.9 million new vehicles were sold, an increase of 3 percent from the first half of last year, Cox said.

Slow growth is likely to continue through the rest of the year, with consumers delaying big-ticket purchases until after the election, said Jonathan Smoke, Cox’s chief economist. “The market is roiled by uncertainty,” he said. “We probably can’t quite keep the pace of sales of the first half, but we aren’t expecting a collapse in sales, either.”

Cox has forecast 15.9 million new cars and trucks will be sold this year. That would be an increase from the 15.5 million that were sold last year, but still well below the 17 million vehicles sold annually before the pandemic.

General Motors said on Tuesday that it sold nearly 700,000 cars and light trucks in the United States in the second quarter, an increase of less than 1 percent from the same period last year. The company said it was its highest quarterly total since the fourth quarter of 2020.