Austin auto sales surge as 2019 winds down

Austin-area auto dealers seem to be closing out the year with a bang.

October was the best sales month so far in 2019, with Central Texas dealers selling 15,687 new vehicles, according to Freeman Auto Report, a Dallas-based company that tracks auto sales in Williamson, Travis, Hays, Bastrop, Blanco, Burnet and Caldwell counties. That’s a 25.5 percent increase over the same month last year.

The October surge comes on the heels of local dealers selling 12,996 vehicles in September. That had been the high-water mark for the sales year.

The September and October success also pushed the area’s auto sales pace ahead of 2018, when the region saw a record 133,144 new vehicles purchased for the full year, according to Freeman Auto Report. Austin-area dealers have sold 111,570 vehicles through the year’s first 10 months, a 4 percent increase over the same period last year, when 107.326 sales were made. That puts area dealers on track to sell 133,784 new vehicles this year, which would be an all-time high.

Auto sales are considered a key indicator of an area’s consumer confidence, as purchases of big-ticket items tend to indicate consumers aren’t worried about their jobs or the state of the economy.

Prior to the surge in September and October, Austin-area dealers’ 2019 sales had trailed last year’s pace. Things started slowing in January, as dealers recorded just 7,522 sales, a whopping 28.7 percent drop from January 2018. Total first quarter sales trailed 2018’s first quarter by about 5 percent. Sales were up and down from April through August, and then revved up in September and October.

Still, October did offer some challenges for some local dealers. Chance Covert, general manager of Covert Chevrolet Buick GMC in Bastrop, said his dealership had to deal with the six-week General Motors strike, which ended Oct. 25.

“As a bigger dealer, we sell 200 to 300 vehicles a month, so we need to get replenished,” Covert said. “They weren’t delivering cars for seven weeks so we didn’t have SUV and heavy duty truck inventory.”

Still, strong sales earlier in the year promise to make 2019 a solid year, Covert said. He said 2016, 2017 and 2018 “were record years for us. I think it’s really just a strong economy, especially being in the Austin, Texas area.”

For October, Chevrolet was the best-selling brand in the Austin metro area, with 2,322 total sales, according to Freeman Auto Report. Toyota was next with 2,093 sales, followed by Ford with 1,961, Nissan with 1,181 and Honda with 1,022, according to Freeman Auto Report.

For the full year to date, Ford is the area’s sales leader, with 15,716 new vehicles sold, according to Freeman Auto Report. Chevrolet was close behind with 15,485 sales, followed by Toyota at 12,679, Honda with 8,914 and Nissan with 8,841, according to Freeman Auto Report.

October -- 15,687

September -- 12,996

August -- 10, 798

July -- 12,876

June -- 10,668

May -- 12,118

April -- 8,706

March -- 10,305

February -- 9,794

January -- 7,522

Source: Freeman Auto Report

Month-by-month Austin-area auto sales