Motor vehicle sales grew by some 11.9 percent worldwide between 2022 and 2023. Passenger vehicles increased by around 11.3 percent compared to the previous year when some 58.6 million cars were sold worldwide. The current state of the market In 2023, motor vehicle sales reached over 92.7 million units worldwide. China was the largest automobile market worldwide, making up close to 25.8 million of the new car registrations that same year. The United States and Europe ranked second and third, with light vehicle sales reaching approximately 15.5 million units in the U.S. market. The German-based Volkswagen Group and Japanese Toyota Motor were the global leading automakers, with revenues reaching around 348.6 and 311.9 billion U.S. dollars respectively as of May 2024. The path to recovery The automotive chip shortage led to around 11.3 million vehicles being cut from worldwide production in 2021, and forecasts estimate that these disruptions in the automotive supply chain will contribute to the removal of another seven million units from production in 2022. However, despite these challenges, the demand for passenger cars increased in 2021 and 2022, as car sales slowly started to increase. This is partly due to consumers' interest in electric vehicles. Autonomous,electrified, and battery electric vehicles are also forecast to gain popularity in the next decades. Electrified vehicles are projected to make up close to a quarter of car sales worldwide by 2025. By 2040, China is forecast to be one of the largest market for autonomous vehicle sales.

The U.S. auto industry sold nearly ************* cars in 2024. That year, total car and light truck sales were approximately ************ in the United States. U.S. vehicle sales peaked in 2016 at roughly ************ units. Pandemic impact The COVID-19 pandemic deeply impacted the U.S. automotive market, accelerating the global automotive semiconductor shortage and leading to a drop in demand during the first months of 2020. However, as demand rebounded, new vehicle supply could not keep up with the market. U.S. inventory-to-sales ratio dropped to its lowest point in February 2022, as Russia's war on Ukraine lead to gasoline price hikes. During that same period, inflation also impacted new and used car prices, pricing many U.S. consumers out of a market with increasingly lower car stocks. Focus on fuel economy The U.S. auto industry had one of its worst years in 1982 when customers were beginning to feel the effects of the 1973 oil crisis and the energy crisis of 1979. Since light trucks would often be considered less fuel-efficient, cars accounted for about ** percent of light vehicle sales back then. Thanks to improved fuel economy for light trucks and cheaper gas prices, this picture had completely changed in 2020. That year, prices for Brent oil dropped to just over ** U.S. dollars per barrel. The decline occurred in tandem with lower gasoline prices, which came to about **** U.S. dollars per gallon in 2020 - and cars only accounted for less than one-fourth of light vehicle sales that year. Four years on, prices are dropping again, after being the highest on record since 1990 in 2022.

Global new vehicle sales grew by 11.9 percent between 2022 and 2023. In detail, commercial vehicle sales increased by about 13.3 percent, while passenger car sales were up by 11.3 percent.