David Thomas

Interest rates have tripled compared to last April. Yes, you read that right. Car loan interest rates are now near 7%, up from the low twos in 2022 making cars less affordable and causing pain for many car shoppers. However, sales were strong in April — up by nearly 6% according to some estimates — and in our latest Ease of Purchase survey 83% of buyers found the process easy, up from 81% in March.

The slight uptick follows two factors that also saw positive change in April.

After a brief respite last month, shoppers are searching more for the car they want.

February saw shoppers visiting far fewer dealerships to find what they wanted

Car sales picked back up in January and the Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate (SAAR) landed at 15.7 million according to NADA.

After Six Months of Polling, the Issues Bringing Car Buyers Down Are Clear

Indicators across the industry are showing that dealership inventories are rebounding from some of the tightest in history.

Our monthly survey of new vehicle shoppers found that as inventories continue to slowly return, the process of buying a new car has gotten easier.

The kickoff to the rebooted, and slightly renamed, North American International Detroit Auto Show hit some snags. But it may have opened doors to what’s next for what was once the premiere event in the entire industry.

Identifying the exact moment EVs will hit a saturation point continues to spur healthy debate in boardrooms, newsrooms and the Twitterverse.

Nearly every brand now has an EV to sell, but is it a tipping point?

There is a serious debate on when the automotive industry will reach a tipping point when it comes to electric vehicles. Generally, we think of that tipping point in terms of sales. Car and Driver recently reported that registrations of EVs “shot up 60% in the first quarter of 2022.” This is a positive sign but still less than 5% of our total market.