Tesla Sales Down, GM and Toyota Up Slightly in 2nd Quarter

Much of the auto industry, with the notable exception of Tesla, reported modest sales growth in the three months through June as high interest rates, high vehicle prices and uncertainty about the economy weighed on consumers.

Sales in late June were also slowed by disruptions at car dealers stemming from a cyberattack on a company that supplies software and data services to dealerships.

Cox Automotive, a market research firm, estimated on Tuesday that 4.1 million new cars and trucks were sold in the second quarter in the United States, up a little from the period in 2023. That’s a marked slowdown from the year’s first three months, when sales grew 5 percent. In the first six months of 2024, 7.9 million new vehicles were sold, an increase of 3 percent from the first half of last year, Cox said.

Slow growth is likely to continue through the end of the year, said Jonathan Smoke, Cox’s chief economist. “The market is roiled by uncertainty,” he said. “We probably can’t quite keep the pace of sales of the first half, but we aren’t expecting a collapse in sales.”

Cox has forecast that 15.9 million new cars and trucks will be sold in the United States this year. That would be an increase from the 15.5 million sold last year, but still well below the 17 million vehicles sold annually before the pandemic.

General Motors said on Tuesday that it sold nearly 700,000 cars and light trucks in the United States in the second quarter, an increase of less than 1 percent from the period last year. The company said it was its best performance since the fourth quarter of 2020.