Cox lowers full-year forecast to 14.4 million vehicles

DETROIT—Cox Automotive on Tuesday cut its full-year new vehicle sales outlook by nearly 1 million vehicles to 14.4 million, the latest forecaster to lower estimates amid persistent supply constraints.

It's the second time this year Cox has lowered its sales forecast, which initially stood at 16 million vehicles. IHS Markit and LMC Automotive have also downgraded their outlooks.

The pullback comes as Cox predicts a 19.3-percent decline in second-quarter sales compared with the same period a year earlier. It says first-half sales will fall 17.3 percent as the industry continues to struggle with a global semiconductor shortage that has upended supply chains and sapped dealer inventory.

Cox says new-vehicle supply is down roughly 280,000 vehicles compared with this time last year, and down about 1.6 million vehicles compared with 2020.

"Last June, I wrote that the concern about the supply situation could not be overstated, as we were in untested territory for the market," Charlie Chesbrough, senior economist at Cox Automotive, said in a statement. "That sentiment remains, as there has been no significant shift in the conditions on the ground since last fall. Even though economic conditions have worsened in the past months, the lack of supply is still the greatest headwind facing the auto industry today."

Edmunds on Tuesday also called for a year-over-year sales decline driven by inventory shortages, predicting second-quarter sales will fall 20.8 percent from the same period a year ago.

Cox forecasts a June seasonally adjusted annual selling rate of 13.8 million vehicles, down 7.5 percent from a year earlier. It says June sales volume will fall 7.5 percent to 1.2 million vehicles.

J.D. Power and LMC Automotive have called for a steeper, 12.4 percent decrease, unadjusted for selling days.

Cox predicted Tuesday that General Motors will outsell Toyota Motor North America in the second quarter, regaining the top spot in a sales race it had long led before falling behind last year and again in the first quarter of 2022.

GM will lead all auto makers with sales of 575,911 vehicles in the second quarter, Cox says, up 13 percent from the first quarter but down 16 percent year over year. It predicts Toyota will sell 543,819 new vehicles, up 5.7 percent from the first quarter but down 21 percent year over year.

Ford Motor Co. is the only brand aside from Tesla Inc. expected to post a year-over-year sales gain for the second quarter. Cox says it is expected to sell 496,248 new vehicles, a 15.6-percent gain over the first quarter and 5.1-percent improvement compared with the second quarter of 2021.

Tesla's second-quarter sales are expected to rise 90 percent from the same period a year earlier. The electric vehicle maker is expected to more than double its market share for the first half of the year to 4.0 percent, up 2.2 percentage points from the same period a year earlier.