Welcome back to CBT News. 2020 was an unforgettable year in the auto industry. As dealers worked diligently to keep their families safe, they were also tasked with maintaining a business during a pandemic. Today, we take a look back at the final numbers for the auto market in 2020.
Automakers reported selling 14.57 million new vehicles for the year. This is lower than the past five years when sales reached at least 17 million units. While 2020 wasn’t on par with recent results, sales for the year were still better than what many analysts predicted after the shutdowns were enforced due to the pandemic.
Ford’s U.S. sales fell 15.6% in 2020 due to COVID and tight inventories on F-150s.
For GM, U.S. sales fell 12% but increased 5% in the fourth quarter year-over-year.
FCA saw a sales drop of 17% in 2020 mostly due to a dramatic falloff in fleet orders.
For Toyota, U.S. sales fell 11.9%, however, the company did see a substantial 37% improvement in hybrid vehicle deliveries.
Honda fell 16.3% for the year but started to pick up some momentum in December as total sales were up 0.3% and truck sales were up 4.2% for the month.
Hyundai Motors America sales dropped 10%, however, the automaker set an all-time record in SUV sales with 404,661 units sold in 2020.
Volkswagen Group was down 12.8% but the company tripled its electric vehicle sales from 2019, selling 134,000 EVs in 2020.
Subaru sales were off 12.6% but picked up momentum in December as the company reported a 2% increase year-over-year.
Nissan took the biggest dive in U.S. sales among major automakers as sales dropped 33.2% for the full year.
Out of all automakers, only three were able to buck the downward trends and turn a profit in 2020.
Mazda was up 0.2%, aided primarily by the success of its CX series which increased 11% from 2019.
Volvo was up 1.8%, more than doubling its EV sales as the company prepares for an all-electric future.
Tesla saw the biggest jump in automotive and one of the biggest increases among any company as the EV maker was up 20.3%. Tesla’s stock broke records as its market cap increased by more than $500 billion. The company joined the S&P 500 index and CEO Elon Musk became the richest man in the world.
Inventory remains lower than the industry average but automotive analysts are hopeful the number of available units will improve as the COVID-19 vaccine is distributed throughout 2021.
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