Earlier this year, GM Authority reported that the American automotive market is expected to return to normal during the 2024 calendar year. Indeed, the auto market has been a rollercoaster of sorts since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and still hasn’t fully recovered to pre-pandemic levels. With that in mind, it appears as though wholesale used car prices made a notable drop from just a year ago.
According to a report from Cox Automotive, wholesale used car prices in May 2024 were down 1.2 percent from April 2024 figures and a striking 12.1 percent from May 2023 numbers. While prices are still higher than they were pre-pandemic, this could be a sign that used car prices are continuing down the path toward normalcy.
“While declines in used-vehicle values overall were a bit muted in the first half of May, they picked up in the latter half of the month,” Cox Automotive Economic and Industry Insights Senior Director Jeremy Robb claimed in a prepared statement. “It’s seasonally normal to get some weakening in the market over the Memorial Day weekend, but this month, we experienced a little more softening in the final week. As we move into summer, used retail days’ supply remains lower than last year, which could bring in more buyers at Manheim in the coming weeks.”
It’s worth noting that when the wholesale supply of used vehicles becomes cheaper for dealerships, retail sales eventually follow suit, making prices more affordable for consumers.
Some additional findings of this report include:
- Retail used vehicle sales increased—they were up 6 percent in May 2024 from April 2024 and 12 percent higher from May 2023.
- Rental risk prices and mileage showed declines. Average prices for rental risk units sold at auction in May 2024 declined 14.1 percent year-over-year, while rental unit average mileage was down 3.5 percent during the same timeframe.
- Consumer confidence was mixed – some indexes found that consumer confidence rose in May 2024, while others found that it decreased.
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Comments
The price of EVERYTHING still needs to come down about 30-40%. The middle class is suffering. Prices are too damn high!
Good luck with that. What the press doesn’t seem to understand, and not even Republicans want to point out, is that the current approx. 3% inflation rate is on top of the approx. 10% from earlier. That 10% hasn’t go away with reduced inflation, and the current lower number is compounded on top of that prior increase. We’d need deflation for that earlier inflation to go away, and that apparently is very bad for an economy (and not something anyone in the U.S. has ever lived through).
You aren’t wrong. What is different this time is that the US, Europe, Russia, China, and pretty much the entire “civilized” world now have an inverted population pyramid. If you look at the age demographics on a graph, a healthy population looks like a pyramid, with a higher and higher population count as you go from top to bottom from older people to younger and younger people. We have too few young people at the base now to continue to support modern economic theory and systems. The economy is just pyramid scheme built on top of pyramid scheme, with the foundational pyramid as the age demographics of the population itself. In fact, China is so bad from the One Child policy, that their demographics are the worst known in human history.
Maybe robotics stealing jobs will come just in time! And eventually we’ll have a Star Trek economy. 😉
What’s a “Star Trek economy”? Asking for a friend.
You get paid to hold hands and sing koombayah. Big brother takes care of all your needs.
FYI, this is the economy Palestine lives in. Their GMI is 240$ per year because the USA gives them 30 billion to cover food and medicine, and Israel gives them their electricity and water. They live in Karl Marx’s dream, and 90% of them view Hamas favorably. It’s amazing how a society devolves when meaningful work is removed from the equation
Not at all correct, particularly the meaningful work comment. Do you really think that none of the characters on any of the ships or planets in Star Trek do “meaningful work?”
Technology produces all that is needed and people only work for self-satisfaction. Note they have “replicators.”
There’s more to it than that, but that’s the basic gist. There are at least a couple of books on the subject. The one I’ve read is Trekonomics.
People over the age of 60, and I’m well past that, certainly remember that inflation and interest rates were far higher for a long period of time in the late 1970s – most of the 1980s. We bought our first home when mortgage rates were over 15%!
The decrease in wholesale used vehicle prices mean less for your trade-in and new ones gather dust on lots, like Ford is currently whining about. But do they make any effort to reduce new vehicle prices? Not on your life. Fat, dumb and rolling in dough is all they remember (from the pandemic years) and they won’t give that up!
12% after going up 112%
YEAH! hey hurry up and buy, what a deal!
I don’t buy used cars, so for me the difference between now and then is you can actually get some selection in new vehicles. Earlier my concern was getting in an accident where my vehicle was totaled. Sure I’d get a decent penny for it with the high used car prices, but there’s be nothing I could get to replace it with that I really wanted.
“The American automotive market is expected to return to normal during the 2024 calendar year.”
The market will officially be normal when dealers have Express vans in stock again. (Unless of course GM doesn’t have a clue or care and WANTS us to buy Fords.)