Analysts expect that Fiat Chrysler, led by Jeep sales, will be one of the few makers posting positive results for May.
Guessing when car sales will begin to slip after what has been described as the longest expansion in Auto Sales in the U.S, going all the way back to World War II is proving hard to pin down.
Edmunds.com expects new car sales in May will increase 2.3% from April 2016, but drop 5.8% compared to May 2015. The Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate or SAAR will hold steady at 17.5 million.
While sales appear to be slowing, 2016 is still on track to break last year’s record of 17.47 million new car sales, Edmunds noted in its latest forecast, which projects that 1,537,436 new cars and trucks will be sold in the U.S. in May.
This prediction comes even though several major automakers, such as General Motors, Ford, Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Hyundai and Volkswagen/Audi, will likely see sales drop this month. Only Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, which is riding strong sales of its Jeep brand, appears poised to report a sales increase, according to the Edmunds forecast.
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“It’s easy to look at May’s sales and conclude that the retail car market is losing steam, but it’s too soon to say for sure that auto sales are leveling off,” says Edmunds.com Director of Industry Analysis Jessica Caldwell.
Toyota is among the many makes expected to see a sales dip in May.
“As in previous years, the summer months will flush out more incentives from automakers and the urgency that shoppers show in responding to these incentives will give the industry a much better sense of how the market is trending.”
Edmunds.com estimates that retail SAAR will come in at 14.3 million vehicles in May, with fleet transactions, which has been holding steady through the first four months the year, accounting for 18.5% of total sales.
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Automakers are counting on strong new-vehicle sales over the Memorial Day holiday weekend to help give May sales the boost needed for a moderate increase over this month in 2015, according to a monthly sales forecast developed jointly by J.D. Power and LMC Automotive.
New-vehicle retail sales in May are expected to increase by a modest 2% from a year ago on a selling-day adjusted basis but the actual sales totals will drop year over year, according to the monthly sales forecast developed jointly by J.D. Power and LMC Automotive.
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The final figures for the month will depend on the Memorial Day weekend, which historically is one of the best sales weekends of the year at car dealerships across the country, Power’s analysts noted. However, there are two fewer selling days than there were in 2015 when strong sales in May led to strong sales through the summer and fall.