In a report released earlier this week, the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) forecasted 16.94 million new cars and light trucks will be purchased or leased in the United States in 2015. The association cited an improving economy as the basis for its forecast. 
“The economy will continue to build on the solid growth established in 2014, and we also expect the fundamental conditions to improve in the year ahead,” said Steven Szakaly, NADA chief economist. “Gross domestic product will grow at 3.1% in 2015, with the potential for growth to exceed our forecast.”
NADA specifically highlighted an increase in light-vehicle sales for 2015, attributing the expected growth to “rising employment and wages, continued low interest rates and lower gasoline prices.”
NADA’s Szakaly added that in order for new car sales to rise above 17 million units in 2015, there would have to be a ramping up in incentives and an increase in new car purchases by millennial shoppers above what has occurred over the past two years.
The association forecasted 16.4 million new car and light-truck sales in 2014. With a handful of weeks left in the year, the association believes that sales will hit the forecasted target. According to Reuters, that would be an increase of 5.1% from 2013’s 15.6 million sales and the fifth straight year of rising demand.
