New-vehicle sales, when announced next week by automakers, are expected to show big gains over last year and a slight improvement over last month. The key reason for these gains continues to be the market's healthy recovery from being supply-chain constrained over the previous two years. The July seasonally adjusted sales rate, or SAAR, is expected to finish near 15.9 million. This is an increase from June's 15.7 million level and May's 15.1 million level. Sales have been showing surprising strength this year in spite of large interest rate increases, and July is expected to continue that trend.

July's sales volume is expected to show a 15.3% gain over last year's supply-limited market. However, U.S. auto sales volume is expected to decline modestly from last month, mainly due to one less selling day in July versus June.

Last month, sales into large commercial, government and rental fleets, not including sales into dealer and manufacturer fleets, increased nearly 45% year over year to 217,572 units, according to an estimate from Cox Automotive. Through the first half of 2023, total new-vehicle sales in the U.S. were up more than 12%, with retail sales increasing by approximately 9% and total fleets sales jumping by more than 34%.

July 2023 Sales Forecast Highlights

• The annual sales pace in July is forecast to finish near 15.9 million, up 2.6 million from last July's pace and up from June's 15.7 million level.

• July's sales volume is expected to rise 15.3% from one year ago and reach 1.32 million units.

• There are 25 selling days in July 2023, one less day than last month and a year ago.

All percentages are based on raw volume, not daily selling rate.