The team at Wards Dealer Business have made an art out of explaining the auto industry and projecting what will happen next.
Steve Finlay, prior ROI Conference speaker and Senior Editor at Wards, has a few datapoints to share, and some thoughts about what this could portend about the year ahead.
While he expects another solid year for the industry, Finlay cites concerns about vehicle affordability and rising interest rates as legitimate obstacles. Wards is forecasting a 3% contraction of the market for 2019, with a full year estimate of 16.8M units following 2018’s 17.3M.
These financial hurdles will likely result in increases to the already long buying cycle and even postponing purchases altogether.