The car industry has faced a number of challenges over the past 4 years with Covid grinding car productions to a halt in 2020 followed by a shortage of components and a delay in car deliveries in 2021 to 2022. According to AutoTrader, the car industry lost out on 3 million car sales between 2020 and 2022.
Due to the shortage of available new cars, we initially saw fewer discounts being offered by dealers on new cars and used car prices have remained high as a result. After all, we all know about supply and demand - and simply put, there hasn’t been enough supply - so car prices have held their values much better than we would normally expect to see.
So what about 2024?
With the supply shortfall stabilising and more new cars now coming through, 2024 should be a promising year for the motor industry. However car buyers still face a cost of living crisis, with increased mortgage or rent payments, higher energy bills and greater food costs.
Despite the economic strain on car consumers, Autotrader predicts the UK automotive marketplace will see a 4% growth in new car sales to an estimated 1.97 million car registrations in 2024.
Car sales have been slow and the manufactures face further challenges with increased competition and regulatory ZEV Mandate targets - so how will the manufacturers and dealers increase the number of car sales? According to the Autotrader article, manufacturers and dealers will offer significant discounts and finance offers to stimulate consumer demand - and in particular for pure electric models which under the ZEV Mandate must account for 22% of all car brand sales. Expect to see some great deals on electric cars this year!
The used car market is heavily driven by the new car market. If you buy a new car - you trade-in your existing car and that generates used car sales for the dealers. It goes without saying then, that if there is an increase in new car sales, used car sales (by default) should also increase as more cars are traded in. Auto Trader have predicted the demand for used cars will increase to an estimated 7.24 million sales this year - up from 2023.
Used car prices did start to tumble in the latter part of 2023 with the HPI director of valuations citing a 10.5% drop in the last quarter of 2023, but experts believe the market is stabilising - so no huge drops in car values predicted this year.
Visit https://plc.autotrader.co.uk/news-views/press-releases/2024-forecasts/#:~:text=New%20car%20market%20driven%20by,to%207.24%20million%20in%202024 to read the full AutoTrader article.
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