The new abnormal: Auto sales had wild ride in 2021

Annual U.S. light-vehicle sales edged just over 15 million and were up 3.3 percent compared with 2020. Before COVID-19 reared its head in 2020 and the microchip shortage hit the year after, 2019’s sales were 17.1 million, the seventh-strongest annual tally on record.

Motor Intelligence said December’s seasonally adjusted, annualized selling rate was 12.71 million, the second-lowest of 2021 after September’s 12.38 million. That’s a steep decline from the 18.5 million SAAR recorded in April.

Automakers last week reported December or fourth-quarter sales that were weighed down heavily by inventory and production issues because of the pandemic. Toyota, Honda, Hyundai and Kia declined for the fifth-straight month.

Overall fourth-quarter sales fell 21 percent.

After posting a gain in November, Ford’s sales fell 17 percent in December, though it was the top-selling automaker in the U.S. for the quarter. GM’s inventory woes dragged its fourth-quarter sales down 43 percent to give the automaker its worst quarter since 2009 and second-worst year since 1952. Stellantis also cited supply chain issues for its double-digit drop in the fourth quarter.

Tesla’s fourth-quarter sales soared about 69 percent to an estimated 78,700, while smaller-volume Mitsubishi rose 68 percent to 24,861.

Speaking with reporters on a conference call last week, Toyota Motor North America executives continued to downplay the Japanese automaker’s first U.S. sales crown as “not sustainable” and said they had no plans for marketing on the achievement because of the extenuating circumstances. They also said consumer demand continues to run far ahead of automakers’ abilities to keep up, accounting for the company’s sharp December drop of more than 30 percent.

“Out of the 174,000 vehicles we sold in December, everything was supply constrained,” said Bob Carter, Toyota Motor North America’s longtime head of sales.

He said Toyota dealers finished the month with less than three days’ supply on hand, while Lexus dealers had just four days’ supply. “That’s the lowest dealer stocking level I’ve ever seen. Everything is low single-digit days’ supply, so clearly the demand is very robust.”