Carmakers Turn to Record-High Discounts in U.S.

Carmakers spent a record average $4,100 per vehicle on retail sales incentives during the third quarter to clear their inventories of unsold new cars in the U.S.

Third-quarter incentives are generally high as manufacturers sell down dealer supplies of models from the just-ending model year. Discounting for the period this year was 6% greater than in July-September 2018, according to J.D. Power and LMC Automotive.

The market research firms predict that U.S. sales for September will fall year on year, in part because the month had two fewer selling days than in 2018. Analysts also expect the annualized sales pace will drop to a still-substantial 17 million units compared with about 17.4 million in the same period last year, Bloomberg News reports.