The affordability crisis affecting the US automobile market shows little signs of abating. The average price of a new car continues to rise: In June the average new vehicle MSRP was $51,124, according to Kelly Blue Book, with average transaction prices a little lower at $48,907. While one might imagine this has had a dampening effect on car sales, the opposite is true—the first half of 2025 has seen a robust market with some months seeing extremely high volumes. But most signs point to a tightening of the market for the rest of 2025, according to a new report from cars.com.
The ongoing confusion caused by President Trump’s trade war is in part responsible for the surge of new car sales earlier this year. As tariffs on car imports and car parts were announced, but before they went into effect in April, dealerships filled their forecourts with as much stock as possible. New car sales rose nearly as much as inventory, helped by OEMs offering incentives to move metal—this is why the average transaction price is several thousand dollars less than the average MSRP. But as pre-tariff inventory runs out, we can expect prices to rise and sales to slow.
As tariffs have started to bite, different parts of the market are being affected differently. And if the cynic in you thinks this means the low end is being squeezed, you’d be right. New cars costing less than $30,000 were just 13.9 percent of all car sales in the first half of this year; for the first six months of 2019—before the pandemic drove up new car prices by so much—they made up 38 percent of new car sales. Cars.com notes that 92 percent of sub-$30,000 vehicles are built outside the US, and therefore highly exposed to the new tariffs; only the Toyota Corolla and Honda Civic are built in the US.
