Light vehicle sales spiked to their highest level in nearly four years in March while heavy truck sales dropped to its lowest level since July 2020.
Light Vehicle Sales
The latest data point is the March count published by the BEA in its monthly auto and truck seasonal adjustment report, which shows a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 17.767 million units, an 11.0% increase from the previous month's figure from the BEA. This is the highest level of sales since April 2021 and the largest monthly increase since January 2023.
The first chart shows the series since 2007, which illustrates the dramatic impact of the Great Recession. This is quite a noisy series - the absolute average month-over-month change is 4.3% therefore we've added a nine-month exponential moving average (at the suggestion of Bob Bronson of Bronson Capital Markets Research). The moving average reduces the distortion of seasonal sales events (e.g., Memorial Day and Labor Day weekend) and thus helps us visualize the trend. The latest moving average is at an annual rate of 16.323 million units, the fastest pace since June 2021.
Here is the complete series data from 1976. We've added a linear regression to further illustrate the direction of the long-term trend. The latest moving average value is 8.4% below its record high in July 2005.
Vehicle Sales: Heavy Trucks
The latest data point is the March count published by the BEA in its monthly auto and truck seasonal adjustment report, which shows a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 0.403 million units, a 7.5% decrease from the previous month's figure from the BEA. This is the lowest level of sales since July 2020.
Again, we've added a nine-month exponential moving average to help visualize the trend. The latest moving average is at an annual rate of 0.458 million units, the lowest level since June 2022.
Here is the complete series data from 1967. Again, we've added a linear regression to further illustrate the direction of the long-term trend. The latest moving average value for heavy trucks is 15.6% below its record high in October 2006.
Vehicle Sales: Population-Adjustment
Since 1967, the civilian non-institutional population age 16 and over (i.e., driving age, not in the military, or an inmate) has risen about 63.2%. For a more accurate representation of vehicle sales, our next charts focus on the population-adjusted data by implementing two key modifications:
- We've created a per-capita version using the FRED's CNP16OV series for the adjustment.
- We've indexed the numbers so that the first data point, January 1976, equals 100.
The moving average for vehicle sales per capita series peaked in August 1978. Fast forward more than 45 years, it is now down 35.9% from that peak.
