Mitsubishi Corp. has raised its full-year net profit forecast by 21% to a record 1.03 trillion yen ($7 billion).
Tesla plans to increase production of Model Y and Model 3 EVs in Q4 and keep growth going as newer factories in Austin and Berlin come online in 2023.
Black Book published new insights to their weekly COVID-19 Market Updates, including wholesale prices, retail listing prices, overall wholesale sold volume, used retail listing volume, and BEV sales outlook.
The U.S. new-vehicle sales forecast improved to 17.42 million units in March, but sales fell 3.1% year-over-year against slowing demand fueled by higher interest rates, prices, and payments and reduced incentive spending.
Retail sales for the first half of 2018 are expected to be the weakest since 2014, but record transaction prices have consumers on pace to spend nearly $5 billion more on new-vehicle purchases during the period compared to a year ago.
Despite record incentive spending, the auto industry is on pace to record its weakest first-half sales performance since 2014, according to the two firms. Days to turn remained at 70 through June 18, the highest level since July 2009.
For the fifth time in seven months, J.D. Power and LMC Automotive are predicting a year-over-year decline in new-vehicle retail sales for September. But officials with both firms said the numbers don't point to significant weakness or risk, but the firm does see challenges ahead.
LMC Automotive has revised its forecast for U.S. auto sales for the 2016-2023 periods. The company expects nearly 250,000 fewer units will be sold each year during that timeframe, with a larger reduction occurring between 2016 and 2017.
J.D. Power and LMC Automotive said this week that consumers are on pace to spend more than $32 billion on new vehicles this month, a first for the month of February. The two firms noted, however, that their projected 13.9 million retail SAAR is the lowest level since June and well below the 15.3 million pace set last September.
New-vehicle sales are expected to decline 1% year over year to a total of 1.59 million units in May 2015, resulting in an estimated 17.3 million seasonally adjusted annual rate, according to Kelley Blue Book.
