One way the automotive industry historically measures whether or not a vehicle is hot is how long it sits on a dealership’s lot. The microchip shortage definitely continues to impact car sales, with production interruptions lowering the new-car supply.
The car sales website iSeeCars.com shows what vehicles got snapped up in the first half of the year, with the top 20 shown here. These entries are ranked by shortest stay on the lot so far this year. Any patterns? Well, some vehicles listed here were in the first quarter’s top 20 list as well. And iSeeCars executive analyst Karl Brauer says the year-to-date fastest sellers include five new-for-2021 models—and four of them are hybrids.
“Others on the year-to-date fastest-selling list had significant redesigns for 2021 like the Corvette (although it was redesigned for 2020, new models were hard to come by and production was cut short), the Cadillac Escalade/Escalade ESV, the Lexus IS 350 had a refresh, the GMC Yukon/Yukon XL, the Chevrolet Tahoe, and the Toyota Sienna wasn’t just redesigned, but was also made into a hybrid,” Brauer said.
Meanwhile, for comparison purposes, a new vehicle spends an average of 55.1 days on the lot, up from Q1’s 54.2. And today’s average new car price, $37,912, is up from $37,489 when we checked in three months ago.