For November, car and truck sales are getting a boost from Black Friday sales.
DETROIT, MI - Throughout 2015, the selling rate of new cars and trucks in the U.S. has been at levels not seen in at least a decade, and car-shopping and industry analysis site Edmunds.com says November could be a record month.
Edmunds' November sales forecast projects that 1,331,415 new cars and trucks will be sold this month, for a seasonally adjusted annual selling rate, or SAAR, of 18.3 million vehicles. The previous record for November was 1,324,542 new cars sold and a SAAR of 17.7 million, set in 2001.
If a new record is set, much of it will be thanks to favorable market conditions such as lower lending rates and cheaper gas prices.
But for November in particular, car and truck sales are also getting a boost from Black Friday. That may seem obvious, but it wasn't always the case.
"Not even a decade ago, November was a notoriously slow sales month, and it typically ranked as the third worst month for sales in the calendar year," said Jessica Caldwell, Edmunds.com's director of industry analysis. "But in recent years, car dealers have joined other retailers to embrace Black Friday as a big sales driver."
In fact, Caldwell added, November has been one of the three best months for U.S. autos sales since 2010. And last year, auto sales on Thanksgiving weekend were double that of any other weekend that month.
"We expect to see both trends continue this year," Caldwell said.
Related: These were the top-selling cars and trucks in October
David Muller is the automotive and business reporter for MLive Media Group in Detroit. Email him at dmuller@mlive.com, follow him on Twitter or find him on Facebook.