The latest vehicle sales report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis is now available through December. This data series stretches back to January 1976 and for heavy trucks, since 1967. Since that first data point, the civilian non-institutional population age 16 and over (i.e., driving age, not in the military, or an inmate) has risen about 62.7%. For a more accurate representation of vehicle sales, we focus on the population-adjusted data.
Here is a chart, courtesy of the FRED repository, of the raw data for the seasonally adjusted annualized number of new vehicles sold domestically in the reported month. This is a quite noisy series - the absolute average month-over-month change is 4.3%.
The latest data point is the December count published by the BEA in its monthly auto and truck seasonal adjustment report, which shows a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 16.798 million units, a 0.9% increase from the previous month's figure from the BEA and the highest level since May 2021.
The first chart shows the series since 2007, which illustrates the dramatic impact of the great recession. The purple line smooths the volatility with a nine-month exponential moving average suggested by our friend 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 16.047 million units, the highest level since June 2021.
Here is the complete series data from 1976. We've added a linear regression (the red line) to further illustrate the direction of the long-term trend. The latest moving average value is 10.5% below its record high in July 2005.
Here is the same chart with 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 36.5% from that peak.
Vehicle Sales: Heavy Trucks
We've repeated these charts using heavy trucks for comparison.
The latest data point is the December count published by the BEA in its monthly auto and truck seasonal adjustment report, which shows a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 0.422 million units, a 14.0% decrease from the previous month's figure from the BEA and the lowest level since August 2021. 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 0.472 million units, the lowest level since August 2022.
The latest moving average value for heavy trucks is 13.0% below its record high in October 2006.
The moving average for heavy truck vehicle sales per capita series peaked in January 1973. Over 50 years later, it is now down 48.8% from that peak.
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