Light Vehicles Sales "Beat the tariff" at 17.3 million SAAR in April

Wards Auto released their estimate of light vehicle sales for April: Tariff-Induced Buying Pumps U.S. Light-Vehicle Sales for Second Month in April (pay site).

Tariff-related buying lifted sales over the past two months to a seasonally adjusted annual selling rate of 17.6 million, well above the roughly 16.0 million they would have totaled otherwise. There was some indication that the surge was decelerating by the end of the month, probably due to tariff “exuberance” starting to dry up and because of a drain to inventory. There was more strength, in general, in demand for fullsize and luxury-segment trucks than for more affordable vehicles, including cars and small and midsize CUVs and SUVs.

Click on graph for larger image.

This graph shows light vehicle sales since 2006 from the BEA (blue) and Wards' estimate for April (red).

Sales in April (17.27 million SAAR) were down 2.8% from March, and up 7.7% from April 2024.

Sales in April were above the consensus forecast.

The second graph shows light vehicle sales since the BEA started keeping data in 1967.

This "beat the tariff" induced surge in buying was the best April since 2021.