New car days' supply retreats for dealers in Aug.

New vehicle days’ supply dropped rapidly in July due to fluctuating inventory and sales data, a lingering consequence of June’s CDK Global cyberattack.

Driving the news: The DMS outage has made it difficult to gain an accurate picture of the current car market, as reporting remains inconsistent and delayed. Still, it appears inventory levels are normalizing, a trend expected to continue into next month.

• The industry carried 2.79 million new vehicles at the start of August, a decline of 3.6% from July according to Cox Automotive.

• While inventory levels appeared relatively stable, days’ supply plummeted 43% to 68 days. This swift decline was caused by July’s abnormally high days’ supply level. Compared to May, prior to the DMS outage, days’ supply has dropped only 10.5%.

Big picture: While supply levels are still recovering, some encouraging trends have emerged over the last few months.

• New arrivals are hitting dealership lots, hopefully signaling an incoming sales surge. More than 40% of inventory held by brands like Honda, Genesis and Subaru were from the 2025 model year.

Zooming in: Stellantis still has a major supply problem, a result of its over-zealous pricing during the last four years.

• Jeep and Dodge inventories were nearly double the industry average at the start of August, with 30% of the latter’s supply comprised of 2023 model-year vehicles.

• Comparatively, Japanese brands continue to report some of the lowest inventory levels, led by Toyota with 29 days.

Bottom line: While the car market is still regaining its sea legs, things appear to be headed in the right direction for most brands. With new arrivals hitting dealership lots, consumers are also likely to see deals popping up for older model-year vehicles, driving up sales as we near the end of Q3.

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