The 2026 Car Market RESET Just GOT WORSE | Episode 1011

It's noon here in Ventner City, New Jersey, and our nation's capital, Washington, D.C.,

and this is Car Edge Live for Friday, February 13th. Hope you don't suffer from

trisk detectifobia, ladies and gentlemen. With your host today for Car Edge Live,

me, Ray here in Ventner, and Zach hanging out in his apartment in D.C. How are you this afternoon,

Hanson? Fantastic. Happy Friday, the 13th. Everyone, thanks so much for tuning in and

spending some of your day with us. Today's show is brought to you by CarEdge.com. As a friendly

reminder, back at CarEdge.com, we provide car buying services that take care of the research,

dealer outreach, and even negotiation. We learn what matters to you. Contact dealers,

compare real offers, and help you get the best deal. Without the stress, a tremendous thank you

to everyone who has gone to CarEdge.com slash dealer dash ratings or Google search Car Edge

dealer ratings. So much good feedback. So many bugs squashed. This is still in beta. Maybe next

week, this will be fully ready to go for the world. And as a friendly reminder, what we've done here

back at CarEdge.com slash dealer dash ratings is we have brought in all the OTD data that we've

collected to ultimately show you what's going on at certain dealerships. For example, this dealership

dad having a field day, adding premium clear bra and ceramic and nap combo and tire and wheel and

other accessories, maybe a sign that this is a dealership that you should just be a little,

you know, thoughtful of before you head into check all that out back at CarEdge.com slash

dealer dash ratings. And please again, in beta, send your feedback to me. It is much appreciated.

Indeed. And I noticed I noticed a name or two in the F section. And I might have worked for one

of those people. When where? Well, it was in Mesa. And at that time, it was at a Mazda Volkswagen

store. So this is what 30 40 years ago? Oh, was it? Yeah, I guess. 1993. Maybe maybe they'll need to

hire you to free things up. Dad, let's start here again. That's all in beta. So keep that

I don't think they will. Let's start here, dad. The car market reset just got works. And the latest

data from Cox Automotive shows it. Guys, one of the things that we look at every single day

is the days supply of inventory in the auto industry. And the reason we look at the days

supply dad is because it tells us how long it would take to sell all available inventory based

on current sales rates. Well, every single month, the industry conglomerate Cox Automotive puts out

a report that tells us for the whole industry nationwide, what is going on in terms of days

supply of inventory. I don't know if you had a chance to look at this report yet this morning,

dad, have you? No, perfect. We're going to put you on the spot then we'll put everyone in our

community on the spot as well. What do you think the days supply of new vehicle inventory has sky

rocketed? So I'll give you that as a hint. What do you think it is, dad? Well, it had been what,

76, I think, if I remember correctly, 76 or 77 days. Yeah. So if you're saying it's sky rocketed,

I would think that that would take it into the low 90 days supply, maybe 92, 93 days. Would that be

here? It's a pretty good guess. Let's actually start this by showing you that number. Let's get a

couple other guesses over 100 as well here. I'll pull it up on the screen. You ready for this?

Yes. 98. What? 98 days supply. There are glasses on double check, 98 days supply, dad.

So that would explain why the car market reset just got worse.

That would indicate to me because I'm looking to the left of that number and that's the total

new car inventory as of January 30th, which was at 2.77 million. And if I'm not mistaken,

we started the year at about 2.76 million or two. No, this was last month. This was last month.

Yeah, but I'm okay. So the number of vehicles has remained the same, but the day supply has jumped

by 22 days. Now, the only thing that tells me is even those who can't afford to buy aren't buying.

That's what that says. I mean, why would the same volume of inventory suddenly take 22 days

longer to sell other than the fact that, well, ain't nobody buying it?

Boom. That's what this indicates and that's why I led with the reset just got worse because the

latest data shows that it airs now. What is that? A percentage change. We went from 76 to 98.

What's that? Like a 30% increase in days? 25% increase in days? That just demonstrates

clear as ever before that this industry is going to have an oversupply of inventory for

the foreseeable future. And what do we know happens when the industry has an oversupply

of inventory? Eventually, it doesn't happen immediately, but eventually prices lower,

incentives increase. And right now, we're at this crux moment for the industry where they

don't want to increase their incentives, their cost to produce vehicles continues to go up.

They're trying to find cost cutting measures, but at the same exact time, inventory levels stayed

flat, but days supply skyrocketed. That is, if you work in the auto industry, if you're working

retail auto like my dad used to, if you work in an automaker, I think you should be anticipating

a car market recession this year, like that for new cars, for new cars. Every indication suggests

that the new car market is pumping the brakes, man, and big time. Well, yeah, the shoppers

are pumping the brakes. Yeah, the shoppers are pumping the brakes. Yes. And so you have to

ask yourself, why suddenly? Why suddenly are customers who could and had been purchasing

vehicles pulling back and not? Could this realistically just be weather related for

January? Because of the huge cold snap and the huge winter storms? I mean, I know here at the

Jersey Shore, I think we're up to 20 or 21 straight days where the ground is still snow covered.

That's not normal here at the shore. So is it the weather that has taken people out of the

market? Is that the consideration? Or is it that people who have the ability to buy are taking

themselves out of the market? And if they are, why? What's the consumer sentiment that would

cause them to do that? What are they fearful of? I know middle class people and lower middle

class and poor people were all fearful of the fact that we don't have enough money to go around.

Okay, that consumer debt, whether it be credit card debt, personal loans, mortgages, auto loans

is at the highest levels it's ever been. And people are stretched to the max. So maybe the

well-heeled folks out there are saying enough is enough. You know, the prices are too damn high

and even we don't want to participate anymore. Yeah, I think you could be onto something here,

dad. Let's look at the actual breakdown by automaker. This is where things get even more

interesting. So I'm just going to read this. Automakers maintain steady inventory as sales

slowed. So again, that was my dad's analysis. Instantly, it was okay, inventory is the same,

but the day supply went up 22 days. I mean, sales slowed down. Here we go, dad. Across mainstream

brands, the pattern is consistent and distinct. Inventory counts are relatively stable, but

slower sales are driving higher day supply. Toyota continues to operate with a comparatively

lean footprint. Its sales pace in January fell by roughly 25% compared to December.

So think about that just for a quick second. So Toyota sales were off 25% relative to December

in January, pushing the days to apply from the low 30s into the low 40s, even with the softening

Toyota remains one of the most balanced operators in the market. Let's just harp on this for a

second. Yes. Sales pace slowed 25% and inventory levels stayed the same for Toyota dealers.

That is great news for car shoppers. If you have been wanting to buy a new Toyota,

know that when you walk into that Toyota dealership, you call that Toyota dealership

in aggregate for the whole automotive industry. Again, this data is not from us,

it's from Cox Automotive. Yes. Their sales were off 25% month over month. You have more

leverage walking through that door today than you did yesterday. Well, let's phrase it slightly

differently. Sure. It's the first time in a long time that you've had any real leverage at all

when it comes to buying a Toyota. For the longest period of time, Toyota's day supply of cars was

in the low to mid, maybe upper 20s. Okay. And then it went to the low 30s. Well, now it's into the

40s and it's still well below industry averages. But it is the first time in years where consumers

might have some leverage that they didn't have in the past. This could be one of the first times

in years where dealers who insist on adding dealer installed accessories to continue to raise the

price of their vehicles will be forced to eat some of those accessories if they would like to

sell those vehicles. Now, I'm not going to sit here and suggest to you when their day supply is

less than half of what the industry average is, that you have tremendous leverage as a customer,

but you have some leverage. You have leverage you didn't have two months ago. And so for those who

have been waiting to be able to find quote unquote a deal on a Toyota or a Lexus, we might soon be

approaching the time where you might actually find it. Next, Nissan, their sales pace in January

was down by 12% from the prior month. So actually, again, puts into perspective your Toyota sales

off 25% is tremendous Nissan. A struggling brand was only off only 12% month over month,

lifting the day supply from the mid 90s to above 110. Honda's cadence cooled similarly with sales

falling 17%. So same story during the market for a Toyota, for a Nissan, for a Honda, their sales

were off 17% with day supply rising from the upper 40s to the mid 60s. Not only do I want the temperature

here in Washington, BC to be in the mid 60s, I also want Honda's day supply of inventory to be in

the mid 60s because you have more leverage as a customer when that's the case. Hyundai and Kia

posted sales declines of 23% and 11% respectively. Their day supplies were well into the triple digits,

Hyundai for Hyundai, and into the low 110s for Kia. The 2026 car market reset just got worse.

This data demonstrated, and it should be super new car market, new car market just got worse.

These automakers, again, I go back to what I said five minutes ago. If you work in retail

automotive, if you work for an automaker, or you work adjacent to the auto industry,

especially for new cars, I would anticipate a meaningful and material slowdown in sales for

the remainder of this year. This is what all these indicators point to.

Well, what will be interesting to see is what happens in the spring selling season.

And when I say that, I can tell you in all the years that I was in retail automotive,

that for whatever reason it seemed like on March 1st, somebody hit an electric switch

that said, okay, you're allowed out. People are allowed out of their homes and they can go shop

for cars again. I just remember that January and February were always slow. And then March,

it was like all hell broke loose. So it will be interesting to see what happens come March.

And will there be that surge that we've always seen in the past? Or will sales continue to

remain somewhat sluggish? So I think the next two to three weeks could really pretend what

the future will be when it comes to what sales are going to look like. If spring selling season

is slower than normal, then manufacturers are going to have to look at increasing incentives

that they don't want to do at the moment. And dealers are going to have to look at lowering

margins in order to be able to sell the vehicles. With the hope when they do that, if and when they

do that, that they'll mitigate whatever lower profits there are by increasing the amount of

money made in the back end through financing and the protection packages and extended warranties

and things of that nature. I would say there are some signs right now that the new car market

could very much so turn into a buyer's market. That is what we're at the early stages in your

right. The next 30, 60, 90 days will let us know if that's going to be a moment in time or if that

will be the trend for the remainder of 2026. Among the largest domestic full line manufacturers,

pressure is more pronounced. Chevrolet sales slowed by about 25% month over month pushing

days supply from the upper 60s into the mid 80s. Ford sales pace declined even more sharply dropping

30% with days supply jumping from the mid 90s to well above 130. Let's turn our attention to

domestic stat. Chevy sales off 25% month over month, Ford sales off 30% month over month,

days supply skyrocketing at both manufacturers. You're managing a Chevy dealer. You're managing

a Ford dealer. What are you thinking right now, Deb? I'm thinking as my inventory is starting to stack

up that my floor plan costs are starting to go up. To counteract that so that I don't have to pay as

much interest to carry the inventory, I am going to take shorter deals in order to make that inventory

go away. You have to look at it and figure out what the long term cost of keeping that inventory

there versus the short term gain of selling it and potentially creating a new service customer

for your service department. It would seem to me as your inventory grows, your main concern should

be, okay, let's take shorter deals. Let's see what the finance and insurance department can do.

Let's create some potential extra customers for the service department so that perhaps in the

future, those extra customers going into service can help steady the ship through service absorption

where the service department is the primary profit center for the dealership. It seems like the same

playbook at all the other manufacturers. It's just maybe more pronounced at some of the domestic

manufacturers. Again, it simply has a function of how volatile their market is. You cannot have

repeated 30% sales declines and inventory stacking up. That's just not a sustainable business model.

God bless you. It's not a sustainable long term business model. It could be a sustainable short

term business model with the hopes that it turns itself around at some point, but it is not a

sustainable long term business model simply because you want to, as manufacturers, you need to keep

building cars. Well, you don't want to build cars and add additional inventory to your dealer body

if the dealer body's having difficulties selling those vehicles, if they've already had difficulties

selling what's on hand. You don't suddenly want to see the average day supply go from the low to

mid 90s to, I don't know, 120 to 140. You know, the sweet spot for dealerships and manufacturers

is 60 to 75 day supply, not 90 to 120 day supply, not 140 day supply. So if there truly is a slow

down in sales, well, and there doesn't seem to be anything to spur customers to run out and buy

cars, then the manufacturers are going to have to look at perhaps cutting back some of the production

that they had intended. It's a slippery slope. Which to be clear, we've already started to see

that happen. We've seen the manufacturers cut back on some of their production. For example,

we talked about yesterday, Nissan Dad has already executed on their seventh factory closing. So,

I mean, they are already having to make these moves in service of trying to get some activity,

trying to get a better balance of supply and demand. So it is really an interesting time in

the auto industry. I wasn't talking about the used car market, but before we do, I want to do a little

bit of a live experiment here. And so I simply pulled up back on the car edge car search. Here's

in Scottsdale, Arizona, a 2025 Ford F-150 Lariat, $75,000 truck. The dealer is advertising it for

$65,000. The invoice cost is 70. The reason they're being this aggressive, folks, is very,

very, very simple. It's because this car has been sitting there for 342 days and it's a leftover

2025. I mean, this is the type of stuff right now that's killing Ford dealers. Absolutely killing

Ford dealers. Then you've got the new 2026s. Well, here's an Explorer, but it's $62,000. It's

expensive. Now, it's only been on the dealer lot for 19 days, but this is where we look at our

trusty market days supply. How fast is Ford Explorer ST inventory turning over in this market?

Slowly, 154 days. There are 123 for sale, but only 36 have sold the last 45 days.

This is where the writing is a bit on the wall for the dealer. We've got leftover vehicles that

have been sitting for a year. We've got new vehicles that are expensive. Again, they're

fresh on the lot, very fresh on the lot, but the day supply is suggesting they're going to sit there

for a long, long time. And we also know that the average transaction price for pickup trucks

is over $70,000, which I don't know, a $70,000 pickup truck is not a pickup truck that the

average person can afford to buy. It takes an above average income to be able to do that.

And if you don't have the above average income to do that, then the way you're probably doing it

is by extending the loan term. Which has been the theme of the whole week. We've talked about that

every single day this week is the proliferation of more extended loan terms, more approvals for

longer loan terms, rolling over more negative equity, which is financial suicide in the long run.

So either apparently, if you look at the amount of on hand inventory and you look at the slowdown

in sales, apparently for whatever reasons, there's enough people that have at least temporarily

taken themselves out of the market. And dealers and manufacturers are going to take notice and

they're going to have to try and counteract whatever is going on. If and when, I don't know,

you know, maybe we'll see some significant increase in incentives come March 1st for the

spring selling season. I don't know. But if I were at the manufacturer level, I would see like

flashing red lights. If I'm at the dealer level, and I'm the owner of the dealership, I'm already

having conversations with my management team that whatever type of deal we have to take,

we're going to take. I don't want the inventory to sit. I don't want to have to pay for it to sit.

We're going to have to be aggressive on how we approach every deal. We're going to have to

rely on the finance and insurance department to make up whatever money we might be losing on the

front end. And we're going to have to hope and pray that parts and service can carry things

moving forward. So if you're a manager in a dealership, those are conversations that should

be going on. And you know, if you didn't have a Friday morning sales meeting, but you have

a Saturday morning sales meeting, well, I would think the message to the team on Saturday morning

is friends don't let ups walk. We figure out a way to sell them a car.

That was some OG dealership lingo ups or sales ups.

Customers are referred to as an up. Why is that? Because the salespeople all go,

who's up? Are you up or am I up? And so the customers in auto lingo are ups.

They're really opportunities, but they're called ups because who's up? Whose turn

isn't to go talk to the customer? And realistically friends don't let ups leave without a vehicle

if they've expressed a desire to get one. 100% add in again. These are indicators for

buyers market, not sellers market. Now let's do a little bit of a juxtaposition here with the

used car market. This is the latest data, same data set, but for used vehicles. And you can see

here a very, very, very different market dynamic. This is the latest data from this month. 2.18

million vehicles in inventory, 48 days supply. Now what I'm going to do here is show you what

last month's data was. You ready for this? 2.2 million in inventory, 49 days supply. The volatility

in the car market right now is in the new car market. The volatility is not in the used car

market. There is still a limited day supply of inventory. We anticipate potentially some volatility

in the used car market as we see more people take themselves out of the new car market

and look to used vehicles. There's actually a piece of data in here that starts to corroborate

that data, which is all the way down here. Price conscious buyers have limited options

for affordable used vehicles. Used cars price below $15,000 to continue to have low availability

with only a 37 days supply, which is excuse me, 11 days below the overall industry average. So

that signals to me an alarm bell going off in my head, more people are taking themselves out of

the new car market looking for sub $15,000 used cars. And so we could see used cars appreciate

again as the indication that I'm starting to see here. But to be clear, we did not see a 22 day

increase in days supply of used car inventory. The used car market is actually looking to have a

lot more stable right now than the new car market, which to your point,

automaker dealership, the alarm bells are going off. And if they're not, you're not managing

your business appropriately. Well, yeah. And we have had a shortage of $15,000 and below used

cars for years now. And the quality of those vehicles has deteriorated as the prices have

remained high for those $15,000 and below vehicles. We are, we are still seeing some of the highest

prices asked for and paid for older used cars than we have ever seen. You know, typically,

those cars that are $15,000 and under, you know, they used to be like six, seven year old cars.

Now they're probably 10 year old cars that people, you know, with with 105,000 miles on them or 120 and

people are still paying in the low to mid teens for those type of vehicles. And that that to me just

says, you know, these are people that are stuck. They, they can't get into a new car and they can't

really afford to buy a quality used car. So they have to buy an older higher mileage over priced

used car in order to have the transportation that they need. And that to me speaks volumes because

that is, is a recipe for disaster in the long term because as people buy these older cars

with higher miles and they finance them and then they break down and then they have to do

repairs, unexpected expensive repairs that they weren't counting on, they won't have the money

for that. And so that's just going to create another situation that is that won't bode well

for the industry as a whole. Completely agree, Dad. Completely agree. All right,

let's take a moment here. We've got a fine contribution from Rich. Thanks Rich. Check out the

Nissan Land Glider. The car leans into a curve and hopefully all four wheels stay stuck on the

pavement. All right, you ready, Dad? Yes, I am. Nissan Land Glider, bear with me. Yeah,

sounds like a sailboat almost. It certainly looks a little bit like a sailboat here to go.

Oh, yeah. Wow. That's the future, baby. Oh, God, let's hope not.

Is that a one-seater? Looks like a one-seater. Okay, yeah, that's lovely.

Rich's knowledge of obscure cars, I think. Yes, yes. No, it looks like a two-seater. There's

a seat behind the driver's seat. Ah, classic. Yes, yes. That's for you and your baby.

Your baby. Yeah. Thanks again. As a friendly reminder, we have this new product that's in

dealer dash ratings. I appreciate all the feedback that we've been getting, fixing lots of bugs,

again, still in beta. But Dad, just to demonstrate here the way that this works, let's say you're in,

I don't know, Phoenix, Arizona. You can see dealers in Phoenix, Arizona that we have data for.

So for example, you can see here BMW of North Scottsdale. We've got 27 verified quotes. That

means our AI agent, from those of you that are using Carage Pro, our AI agent has gotten 27

out-the-door price quotes from BMW North Scottsdale. And you can see a few high-level items here,

their dock fee, the average add-ons they're adding to each vehicle, what their dealer markup is,

how much we've been able to negotiate off in conversations with them. You can come down here,

guys, and see the actual deals. So I really encourage you, and you can see like they're

adding exterior protection premier for $1,198 and seven-year paint protection for this.

Again, this is in beta. Yes. But please come to this website,

try it out, play around with it, and then share feedback with me here back on the YouTube channel

or directly Zach at CarEdge.com. There's all sorts of good information here as well under reports.

You can learn things about fees in your state. You can learn more about the methodology,

how this actually works. Please, please, please provide feedback. This is a new project, one that

I am personally very passionate about to try and bring some transparency to the auto industry and

to try and highlight good dealers, dealers out there who are doing a good job.

And God knows I am eminently familiar with that dealership exactly where it is. I used to work

right around the corner from it in the Scottsdale 101 Auto Collection Complex.

Was there anything there for Acura and North Scottsdale? Just curious as to how they rate

if they were in there. Yeah, we do have Acura and North Scottsdale limited data,

only two quotes done. And we can see here on average, they're adding $948 in add-ons,

so they're getting dinged a little bit for adding add-ons. Yes. You can see here,

it was on an RDX that they added the Acura Pro package and the exterior protect premiere.

Wow, wow. Well, they've come a long way since I've been there.

Isn't this fascinating? I think, again, as a consumer and quite frankly as a dealer,

this is really good info to know what my competition is doing in terms of being a switch

and also as a customer. You know how it works for a dealer in all seriousness?

When your customer says, well, I'm going to go to your competitor and you go,

great, I encourage you to do that. Here's why and you can pull up the competitor and you can show

that on average of the competitors adding $3,000 worth of add-ons to your $1,000,

then it might become easier for you to say, now, do you really want to go there and spend

time or do you want to save yourself a couple of thousand dollars and just buy a year?

Yeah, to be clear, you can click in and see the actual OTD quote, which I think is incredible.

Yeah, you can see right there, they added the Acura Pro package and the exterior

protection mirror. So, so cool. But again, this is super early days, very much in beta,

so please share some feedback. Again, my email, Zach, the comments in the chat, I will reply to

those as well as we solve some of the bugs and build out better features here. Dad, it's a show,

man. It's a show. We did a great job. We're back on Monday with more car edge life. I don't think

I'm doing any travel next week. I cannot tell you how happy I am because I look at my apartment

right now. Yeah. It's bad. It's bad. Like, I'm looking at the pile of laundry, so it's bad.

Yeah. It's really gross. So, I need to want travel for a few days.

The life of a tech CEO, what can I tell you? This is what you signed up for.

I have no food in my fridge. Like, this is bad, man. This is not good. So, hopefully next week,

everyone here will get a better version of me. You included that. I am very excited.

Maybe next week, you'll have some food. Oh, lucky you. And you'll clean and you'll do laundry.

Well, maybe I'll come down and inspect. We're back Monday, folks. Thanks everyone for tuning in.

We couldn't do this without you. We wouldn't be here without you. So, thanks so much for

all that you do to contribute to our community. Dad, enjoy the afternoon and a warm-ish weekend.

I love you very much. I'm going to go buy some food to put some laundry in.

I think you should. I love you as well. Thank you, everybody, for being here.

We'll see you back here Monday at noon Eastern.

The 2026 Car Market RESET Just GOT WORSE | Episode 1011

About this episode

Out-the-door price

CarEdge.com

dealer fees

Mazda

Volkswagen

Toyota

dealer installed accessories

Lexus

Nissan

Honda

Hyundai

Kia

spring selling season

incentives

extended warranties

Chevrolet

days supply

Ford F-150 Lariat

invoice cost

leftover car

Ford Explorer

average transaction price

used car market

$15,000 and below vehicles

quality of vehicles

older used cars

unexpected expensive repairs

dealer markup

transparency in the auto industry

Acura RDX

Request an Explanation

Want to learn more?

Help improve this episode

More from CarEdge Live