Automobiles remain in short supply, but that hasn’t stopped buyers in the state from finding a way to get their hands on one, according to the latest Colorado Auto Outlook from the Colorado Automobile Dealers Association.
Colorado consumers registered 63,286 new cars and trucks in the third quarter, which was 14.5% more than the 55,272 new vehicles registered in the same period last year. For the first nine months of the year, registrations are up 18.5% compared to 2020 and are running only around 1,600 vehicles behind the same period in 2019.
“Demand for new trucks and vehicles remains high in Colorado, but future sales and registrations will be hampered by production and supply-related bottlenecks, along with a matrix of factors related to the chip shortage, transportation logistics, availability of labor and low inventory,” said Tim Jackson, president of the association, in comments accompanying the quarterly report.
Over the next 15 months, demand will not be the main driver of sales, but rather production, which is falling behind because of ongoing shortages of semiconductors and other critical parts, according to a forecast included with the report.
The forecast projects Colorado vehicle registrations will end the year up 6.6% from 2020, which suggests a very weak fourth quarter. Under a baseline scenario, it predicts that 2022 registrations in Colorado will be almost flat with 2021, up only 0.6%, with the possibility of a 7.5% decline if supply shortages worsen.
Given that registrations lag purchases by about two months, the numbers in the third quarter don’t fully capture impacts, if any, that the rising number of COVID-19 cases in the state because of the delta variant might have had.
Gasoline prices in September were up nearly 55% from where they were in September 2020 in metro Denver, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. But that spike didn’t reverse the long-running slide in car sales in Colorado, which went from 16.6% of registrations in the first nine months of 2020 to only 14.4% so far this year.
Domestic brands also saw a decline in market share in Colorado, going from 40.6% of registrations to 39.1%, while Korean brands rose from 7.4% of registrations to 8.4% and European brands went from 11.1% to 11.6%.
Used vehicle registrations, defined as vehicles up to 7 years old, rose a comparable 18.2% in Colorado through the first nine months of the year, while vehicles 7 to 10 years old experienced a 33% increase in registrations.
