New Car Prices Rise in Slightly in April
Nissan Motor Co.The April average sales price for a light vehicle slipped 0.1% from $32,188 in March to $32,141.Carmakers, on average, sold each vehicle for $47 less than in March. Year-over-year, April 2014 prices were 1.2% higher ($389) than in…
The April average sales price for a light vehicle slipped 0.1% from $32,188 in March to $32,141.Carmakers, on average, sold each vehicle for $47 less than in March. Year-over-year, April 2014 prices were 1.2% higher ($389) than in April of 2013.
Only one automaker posted a pricing gain in April. Nissan posted a month-over-month uptick of 0.8%, but a year-over-year drop of 4.6%. Chrysler pricing in April was flat with March, but other carmakers saw a drop in pricing from March to April.
A senior analyst at Kelley Blue Book (KBB), which released the data Monday morning, said:
Continuing their slow and steady increase, transaction prices are on the rise, but in conjunction with incentive spend, which forces them to offset one another.
Pricing has improved for most automakers on a year-over-year basis, with Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE: TM) posting a 4% pricing increase in April. Chrysler’s year-over-year gain was 3.6% while General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM) posted a gain of 2%. Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) posted a gain of 0.2% year-over-year and a drop of 0.5% month-over-month.
Other than Nissan, only Volkswagen posted a year-over-year price decline, and that drop was 0.7%.
The carmaker with highest average transaction price in April was Volkswagen at around $38,000, with Honda Motor Co. Ltd. (NYSE: HMC) and Nissan held up the low end at about $27,000.
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Paul Ausick has been writing for 247Wallst.com for more than a decade. He has written extensively on investing in the energy, defense, and technology sectors. In a previous life, he wrote technical documentation and managed a marketing communications group in Silicon Valley.
He has a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Chicago and now lives in Montana, where he fishes for trout in the summer and stays inside during the winter.
