New Vehicle Sales Plunge as Chip Shortages, Production Cuts, Low Inventories

Toyota, whose sales plunged less than GM’s and Ford’s, was #1 in Q1.

By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.

Amid ongoing chip shortages and other shortages, production halts, and depleted inventories on dealer lots, auto sales in the US, as measured by the number of vehicles delivered to end users, plunged 25.9% in March compared to March last year, and by 22% compared to March 2019, to 1.25 million vehicles.

In Q1, sales fell by 15.8% from Q1 2021 and by 17.7% from Q1 2019, to 3.28 million vehicles, the worst Q1 since 2011.

In terms of the number of vehicles sold, the auto industry hadn’t grown in two decades before Covid, with the huge trough of the Financial Crisis in between. But since early 2021, supply-chain issues dogging the industry have been triggering on-and-off production halts at various plants around the world. And these production halts are continuing into April – though automakers are saying that components are starting to flow a little better. Q1 sales were right back where they’d been in 1979.

What has kept the industries revenues growing over the decades are higher prices, and this is hugely important now, with unit sales down so far. Higher retail prices are a mix of factors: More expensive models, higher MSRPs, and lower incentives by automakers. Multi-decade low incentives by automakers contribute to the weird phenomenon that many buyers are paying over sticker.

Buyers spent $45.7 billion on new vehicles in March, according to J.D. Power estimates. But this was down by $6.2 billion from March 2021, as higher prices alone weren’t enough to overcome the plunge in sales.

Production keeps getting slammed. For example, today GM halted production of its Chevrolet Silverado 1500 and GMC Sierra 1500 at the Fort Wayne Assembly plant in Indiana for two weeks due to the semiconductor shortage.

When GM announced the plant shutdown last week, it said that chip supplies have improved so far this year. But there’s “still uncertainty and unpredictability in the semiconductor supply base, and we are actively working with our suppliers to mitigate potential issues moving forward.”

GM also said that production at its Lansing Grand River plant will be halted all week due to supply chains issues this time unrelated to semiconductors. The plant makes the Cadillac CT4, Cadillac CT5 and Chevrolet Camaro.

Ford halted production for the whole week, starting today, at its Flat Rock Assembly Plant in Michigan, due to the semiconductor shortage. Production at the plant, which produces the Mustang, was already halted multiple times this year.

Toyota said that it would cut global vehicle production by 17% in April. Other automakers have similar supply chain problems.

Toyota reported on Friday that in March it sold 194,178 vehicles, down 23.5% year-over-year. In Q1, it sold 515,592 vehicles, down 14.7% year-over-year. Despite the massive drop, these sales plunged less than the sales of GM and Ford, and this made Toyota the largest automaker in the US for Q1, a hair ahead of GM.

GM, which reports sales only quarterly, said on Friday that its Q1 sales plunged by 20.1% year-over-year to 512,846 vehicles, with retail sales…