![\"Automakers](\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/presto\/2020\/04\/01\/PDTN\/6f3358fb-7fb8-4a79-a2c5-109b06858f6e-AP20086718730177.jpg?width=540&height=&fit=bounds&auto=webp\")
<\/p>\n<\/div>Automakers are releasing sales results from January through March, and they already show steep declines. Dealerships around much of the country have been shut down by the COVID-19 pandemic.\u00a0(Photo: Paul Sancya, AP)<\/span><\/p>\n With March auto sales infected by the coronavirus, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles reported sales declines of 10% for the first quarter of the year, while General Motors Co. was off 7%, brought low by a dismal last few weeks\u00a0after a healthy January and February.<\/p>\n Wednesday’s quarterly sales\u00a0reports from automakers are\u00a0the first since the U.S.\u00a0was hit by the coronavirus crisis which has closed auto plants and many showrooms. Ford Motor Co. won’t release its January-March sales numbers until Thursday.<\/p>\n The pain spread across all sectors of the automotive market. Hyundai and Porsche saw sales decelerate, with the\u00a0Korean manufacturer’s sales down 43%\u00a0in March alone.\u00a0Including its abysmal March results, Hyundai\u00a0reported an 11% drop in the first quarter. Porsche first-quarter sales were off by\u00a020.2%\u00a0from a year ago after a record 2019.<\/p>\n The industry is bracing for difficult months ahead. After a record five years of annual sales over 17 million units in the U.S., sales were expected to slow in 2020, according to J.D. Power forecasts, to a still healthy 16.8 million units. Sales at the start of the year were promising even as automakers put more money on the hood to keep customers coming.<\/p>\n But with automakers poised for the spring selling season beginning in March, COVID-19 has changed the landscape.<\/p>\n Some 70% of the country’s population is operating under state shelter-at-home orders including major markets like California and New York.\u00a0According to a University of Michigan survey, consumer sentiment tumbled last month to its lowest level since the 2008 Great Recession and is projected to hits its largest two-month decline ever.<\/p>\n As of Monday, at least 35\u00a0states had issued executive orders limiting non-essential business activity affecting dealerships.<\/p>\n Dealers across the country are offering no-interest\u00a0loans and 84-month lease terms to entice buyers. GM and its dealers are offering concierge service, courtesy transportation, and\u00a0home delivery where permissible. But\u00a0permissible\u00a0varies by state.<\/p>\n In Michigan, even online sales have been suspended until April 14.<\/p>\n The Michigan Automobile Dealers Association has advised its members that automotive sales remain closed\u00a0under Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s business guidelines. Only service, parts and body-shop operations are allowed to stay open.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are still actively talking with customers, answering questions and booking appointments for when the governor\u2019s executive order lifts on April 14,\u201d said a spokesperson for Lafontaine Automotive Group.<\/p>\n New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo lifted that state’s\u00a0ban on online sales March 27. “This is an enormous win,” said New York State Auto Dealer Association President Bob Vancavage in a statement. Dealers \u201chave been working non-stop to craft an exemption under the essential business guidelines to allow dealers to do what they do best: sell cars.”<\/p>\n In California, the nation’s largest auto market, the\u00a0California New Car Dealers Association has advised all 1,400 showrooms to comply with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s shutdown order.<\/p>\n Even home-team Tesla was forced to shut down production and showroom deliveries of its electric cars . The shutdown comes as the Silicon Valley automaker is launching its first entry-level SUV, the Model Y. Analysts expect Tesla sales to be off 30%.<\/p>\n The Golden State’s first-in-the-nation shelter-in-place order on March 16 showed ominous signs for the industry as sales cratered by 86% the first weekend after the order. J.D. Power expects that pattern to continue in other states that have enacted stay-at-home orders.<\/p>\n For Detroit automakers, core truck lines were a bright spot for the quarter, even when the disruption of March was included.<\/p>\n In GM’s stable, the Chevy Silverado pickup roared to 26%\u00a0sales gains over a year ago with 114,313 units sold. The brand’s SUV lineup did not fare as well with sales down significantly, save the entry-level, $22,295 Trax SUV.<\/p>\n Indeed, outside of pickups and the low-volume Bolt electric car, only the\u00a0affordable Trax and entry-level Spark sedan saw sales gains. That trend will be watched closely as small vehicles also saw a big gain during the last, 2008 downturn.<\/p>\n Overall, Chevy saw the least degradation among GM brands with sales off 3.8%. GMC dropped 5.5 percent (the Silverado’s Sierra cousin the exception at plus31%), Cadillac 15.8%\u00a0and Buick 34.7%.<\/p>\n For Fiat Chrysler,\u00a0the popular Ram pickup lifted sales\u00a07%\u00a0to 128,805 vehicles while sales of the family-friendly Chrysler Pacifica minivan climbed 5%. Jeep’s all-new\u00a0Gladiator pickup continued to impress with its\u00a0third consecutive quarter of 15,000-plus sales.<\/p>\n Despite the sales gloom, TrueCar projected the average transaction price of vehicles to be up 3.2% in March 2020. Transaction prices have been key to industry profit margins, but TrueCar analyst Eric Lyman sounded a cautionary note as COVID-19’s effect\u00a0on sales did not set in until mid-month.<\/p>\n \u201cHistorically, there\u2019s been a strong correlation between consumer confidence and average transaction price,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re now seeing one of the largest one-month declines in consumer confidence in nearly 50 years. April will provide a much clearer picture of the full impact caused from the coronavirus.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Automakers are releasing sales results from January through March, and they already show steep declines. Dealerships around much of the country have been shut down by the COVID-19 pandemic.\u00a0(Photo: Paul Sancya, AP) With March auto sales infected by the coronavirus, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles reported sales declines of 10% for the first quarter of the year, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25080"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25080"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25080\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25081,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25080\/revisions\/25081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}