September sales hit lowest point in more than a decade

It hasn’t been since September 2009 that new vehicle sales in Canada in September were this low.

At that time, consumers were at the heart of the Great Recession. This time around, supply shortages persisted to keep numbers down, according to figures from DesRosiers Automotive Consultants, even lower than one year prior.

An estimated 130,421 light vehicles were sold in September 2022, down from 136,584 last year, a drop of 4.5 per cent.

That puts the seasonally adjusted annual rate of sales at 1.48 million, in line with what has been seen in the past two quarters.

However, the ‘Detroit Three’ saw “remarkable gains” in the third quarter. But DesRosiers tempered the news with the fact that much of that is a recovery from a tough summer of 2021 when semiconductor shortages hit them hard.

GM saw a 27.6 per cent increase from last year to lead the market. But at the other end, Honda saw a 37 per cent drop.