Americans rush to buy cars to avoid new import taxes

Video: How could President Trump's high tariffs on imported cars affect car prices and the auto industry?

March 2025 brought a rare lull to the US auto market before car prices were expected to increase sharply due to the new tariff policy of the Donald Trump administration. Accordingly, in March, both new and used car prices decreased slightly compared to February 2025. The average car price in this market was also only less than 1% higher than the same period in 2024.

This is a temporary win for consumers, but it won’t last. Once dealers sell their “pre-tax” inventory, the post-tax American car market is likely to change.

Data from Cox Automotive shows that the average monthly transaction price of a new vehicle in the US market last month was $47,462, down slightly from $47,577 in February. Notably, the price gap between internal combustion engine (ICE) and electric vehicles (EV) is widening, contradicting the theory that electric vehicles are approaching price parity with conventional gasoline and diesel vehicles.

Americans rush to buy cars to avoid new import taxes.

Estimates show that the average transaction price of a new electric vehicle in the US market in March 2025 was $59,205, up 7% from the same month last year and up from $57,015 in February. Part of the reason is that Tesla prices are rising, with an estimated average of $54,582. The average price of Tesla electric vehicles is up 3.5% from last year and up 4.5% from February.

The average price of many other brands also increased in March. For example, the average price of a Land Rover in March was $107,129, up 8.8% from $98,478 in February and up 6.1% from the same month last year. Lincoln and Mitsubishi also saw price increases of 4.7% and 4.3% from the previous month, to $68,281 and $31,692, respectively.

However, some automakers saw their average prices fall in March 2025. For example, Cadillac’s average price fell 5% to $74,078. Jaguar’s fell 5.8% to $64,403, while Dodge and Infiniti fell 2.6% to $49,548 and $62,276, respectively.

Data from Cox Automotive also shows that overall U.S. auto sales surged in March 2025, despite generally stable prices and incentives. Americans bought an estimated 1.59 million new vehicles last month. If accurate, it would be the best month for sales in the market in nearly four years, up 30% from February.

The reason is simple: many consumers are rushing to buy cars before the new car import tax takes effect and pushes prices across the market skyrocket.

“All signs point to higher prices this summer as pre-tariff inventory dries up and is replaced with tariffed inventory,” said Erin Keating, senior analyst at Cox Automotive. “The exact magnitude of the price increase will depend on the automaker, as each brand will have different ways of handling pricing. If the White House policy remains in place, our team expects prices to increase by 10-15% for vehicles directly affected by the 25% tariff.”

Cox Automotive also said that online traffic to both its auto-focused websites, Kelley Blue Book and Autotrader.com, increased 30 percent from the time the tariffs were announced on April 2 to April 7, compared to the same period last year. In addition, the websites it operates for hundreds of individual dealerships across the country saw an average increase of 20 percent in traffic.

In addition, searches for popular imported car brands such as Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, and Volkswagen are 2 to 4 times higher than for domestic brands such as Chevrolet, Ford, Jeep, and Dodge. Interestingly, many foreign-branded cars are actually manufactured in factories in the United States, while some American-branded cars are assembled in factories in Canada and Mexico.

Source: https://khoahocdoisong.vn/nguoi-my-do-xo-mua-oto-de-ne-thue-nhap-khau-moi-post268373.html