2015 Was a Record-Setting Year for Car Sales

2017 GMC Canyon Denali​ (Credit: © GMC)

About a decade ago, if I told you the automotive world would be breaking sales records and would be the healthiest it’s been in ages by 2015, you likely would have laughed me out of the room. The automakers were seriously struggling, and some didn’t even survive, like Oldsmobile and Pontiac. Today, as the sales numbers for 2015 get finalized, we learn that last year was the best car-sales year on record.

The previous record-holding year was 2000, which was when 17,402,486 units were delivered. Thanks to a sales growth of nine percent in December, 2015 sales just barely beat the previous record with 17,470,659 units sold – an increase of just 0.39 percent over the year 2000.

You may be asking why sales were so high. Well, according to Automotive News, it is mostly because of pent-up demand meeting increased credit availability. This perfect storm joined up with the increase in leasing to nudge past the previous record.

Believe it or not, the latter actually played a big part in making this new record possible. Reports indicate that leasing accounted for a whopping 29 percent of last year’s overall sales. Back in 2005, leasing accounted for just under 17 percent of total sales.

So, why such a dramatic increase in leasing? Your guess is as good as mine, but I suspect the number of aggressive lease deals on the market these days made a huge impact. Honestly, you can lease a BMW or Mercedes for about the same monthly payment as buying a ho-hum midsize sedan. Who wouldn’t prefer some German luxury metal in their garage over a vanilla midsize car?

Regardless of the reasoning for the recovery of auto sales, it is great to see so many automakers doing well. Maybe we’ll be back here next year talking about how 2016 crushed 2015’s numbers.