Americans Don’t Want to Buy This Car, Research Shows

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Feb 19, 1:00PM EST

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Americans Don’t Want to Buy This Car, Research Shows — © jetcityimage / iStock Editorial via Getty Images

The U.S. auto industry, battered early last year by the COVID-19 pandemic, generally recovered sales by the end of the year. 2021 should be even better. Not only have car companies launched new models–they are counting on the appeal of the next generation of electric cars, with Elon Musk’s Tesla Inc. already in the vanguard of that market.

But, some car companies found several models they could not move off lots. Based on industry standards, dealers usually have 20% of a year’s unit sales in inventory so they can satisfy customer demand. At the end of last year, one model had almost 100% of a year’s inventory in stock across the manufacturer’s dealer network, an astronomically high number.

iSeeCars looked at a total of 700,000 cars in inventory at America’s dealers. It reported “the average new model has 22.5 percent of its inventory remaining from 2020.” At the high end of the list, The Ford Escape has troubling 90.4% of its 2020 inventory still available.

The Escape is Ford’s small SUV/crossover, marketed for a low price and high gas mileage. The base price of the car is $24,885. Ford’s incentives on the Escape speak to the inventory problem. In one part of the U.S., the Escape is available with 60 months 0% APR financing or alternatively a $3,000 “cash back” incentive, which is high for a $25,000 car.

Car research shows that the Escape is not considered a very good car or a very bad one. It has a rating of 7.5 out of 10 by Car & Driver. Edmunds score is 7.7 out of 10. Car & Driver editors wrote: “With a car-like design and driving demeanor, decent interior room, the Ford Escape is a solid mid-pack compact SUV, but several others do the job better.” Not enough praise to drive hordes of people to showrooms.

iSeeCars Executive Analyst Karl Brauer supplied a further explanation. “Ford Escape sales dropped by 26 percent in 2020 compared to 2019, and Ford didn’t begin production of the 2021 version until early January.”

The largest hurdle Ford may have with the Escape is competition. The low-priced crossover/SUV market has been dominated by the Honda CR-V and Toyota RAV4. Notably, neither of the models make the iSeeCars high inventory list, which means their sales versus inventory are at least reasonable, if not brisk.

The second highest model on the iSeeCars list is the Ford EcoSport, the manufacturer’s tiny subcompact crossover. Priced at $19,995, it has a horrible rating of 3.5 out of 10 at Car & Driver. At year’s end, 71.3% of EcoSports were still in inventory.

What was once Chevy’s run at a “Tesla killer”, the Chevy Bolt EV is third on the iSeeCars excess inventory list with 68.9% It gets strong marks with 8 out of 10 at both Car & Driver and U.S. News. However, it is not killing the Tesla at all. Tesla’s low end Model 3 has a four to seven week waiting list for buyers.

Ford has its work cut out for it in 2021. It needs to clear all those Escapes off the lot.

Quarterly sales figures came from goodcarbadcar.net. In a few cases, the listed sales figures are for a larger segment of the model’s sales. For example, listed sales for the F-150 are for the entire F-series.

Click here to see cars dealerships can’t sell.

24. BMW X5
> 2020 inventory unsold: 33.9%
> 2019 Q4 U.S. sales: 17,560
> 2020 Q4 U.S. sales: 18,657
> Year-over-year sales change: +6.2%

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23. Honda Civic
> 2020 inventory unsold: 34.4%
> 2019 Q4 U.S. sales: 70,166
> 2020 Q4 U.S. sales: 60,284
> Year-over-year sales change: -14.1%

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22. Toyota Camry Hybrid
> 2020 inventory unsold: 34.8%
> 2019 Q4 U.S. sales: 78,522
> 2020 Q4 U.S. sales: 89,403
> Year-over-year sales change: +13.9%

21. Honda CR-V
> 2020 inventory unsold: 35.8%
> 2019 Q4 U.S. sales: 103,429
> 2020 Q4 U.S. sales: 96,168
> Year-over-year sales change: -7.0%

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Dodge Ram 1500 Pickup Truck by Tony Webster

Dodge Ram 1500 Pickup Truck (CC BY 2.0) by Tony Webster

20. Ram Pickup 1500 Classic
> 2020 inventory unsold: 37.5%
> 2019 Q4 U.S. sales: 172,579
> 2020 Q4 U.S. sales: 161,266
> Year-over-year sales change: -6.6%

19. Volkswagen Jetta
> 2020 inventory unsold: 38.0%
> 2019 Q4 U.S. sales: 25,712
> 2020 Q4 U.S. sales: 25,182
> Year-over-year sales change: -2.1%

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18. Nissan Versa
> 2020 inventory unsold: 38.7%
> 2019 Q4 U.S. sales: 9,463
> 2020 Q4 U.S. sales: 17,964
> Year-over-year sales change: +89.8%

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17. Chrysler Pacifica
> 2020 inventory unsold: 38.7%
> 2019 Q4 U.S. sales: 27,482
> 2020 Q4 U.S. sales: 29,512
> Year-over-year sales change: +7.4%

16. Ford F-150
> 2020 inventory unsold: 40.4%
> 2019 Q4 U.S. sales: 233,952
> 2020 Q4 U.S. sales: 198,338
> Year-over-year sales change: -15.2%

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15. Nissan Sentra
> 2020 inventory unsold: 43.6%
> 2019 Q4 U.S. sales: 36,468
> 2020 Q4 U.S. sales: 24,773
> Year-over-year sales change: -32.1%

Honda CR-V Hybrid by Rutger van der Maar

Honda CR-V Hybrid (CC BY 2.0) by Rutger van der Maar

14. Honda CR-V Hybrid
> 2020 inventory unsold: 44.9%
> 2019 Q4 U.S. sales: 103,429
> 2020 Q4 U.S. sales: 96,168
> Year-over-year sales change: -7.0%

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13. Nissan Murano
> 2020 inventory unsold: 48.3%
> 2019 Q4 U.S. sales: 18,013
> 2020 Q4 U.S. sales: 13,396
> Year-over-year sales change: -25.6%

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12. Dodge Challenger
> 2020 inventory unsold: 48.3%
> 2019 Q4 U.S. sales: 14,298
> 2020 Q4 U.S. sales: 14,605
> Year-over-year sales change: +2.1%

11. Chevrolet Trax
> 2020 inventory unsold: 48.6%
> 2019 Q4 U.S. sales: 33,039
> 2020 Q4 U.S. sales: 26,106
> Year-over-year sales change: -21.0%

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Buick Envision (CC BY 2.0) by Greg Gjerdingen

10. Buick Envision
> 2020 inventory unsold: 51.1%
> 2019 Q4 U.S. sales: 8,380
> 2020 Q4 U.S. sales: 8,474
> Year-over-year sales change: +1.1%

9. Dodge Charger
> 2020 inventory unsold: 51.2%
> 2019 Q4 U.S. sales: 25,830
> 2020 Q4 U.S. sales: 23,795
> Year-over-year sales change: -7.9%

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8. Ford Ranger
> 2020 inventory unsold: 51.5%
> 2019 Q4 U.S. sales: 33,059
> 2020 Q4 U.S. sales: 27,148
> Year-over-year sales change: -17.9%

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7. Chrysler 300
> 2020 inventory unsold: 52.0%
> 2019 Q4 U.S. sales: 5,521
> 2020 Q4 U.S. sales: 5,099
> Year-over-year sales change: -7.6%

6. Hyundai Santa Fe
> 2020 inventory unsold: 57.7%
> 2019 Q4 U.S. sales: 31,054
> 2020 Q4 U.S. sales: 30,337
> Year-over-year sales change: -2.3%

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Expedition Max Gatorbacks by Truck Hardware

Expedition Max Gatorbacks (CC BY 2.0) by Truck Hardware

5. Ford Expedition Max
> 2020 inventory unsold: 59.2%
> 2019 Q4 U.S. sales: 24,267
> 2020 Q4 U.S. sales: 26,091
> Year-over-year sales change: +7.5%

4. Ford Expedition
> 2020 inventory unsold: 61.0%
> 2019 Q4 U.S. sales: 24,267
> 2020 Q4 U.S. sales: 26,091
> Year-over-year sales change: +7.5%

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3. Chevrolet Bolt EV
> 2020 inventory unsold: 68.9%
> 2019 Q4 U.S. sales: 3,307
> 2020 Q4 U.S. sales: 6,702
> Year-over-year sales change: +102.7%

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2. Ford EcoSport
> 2020 inventory unsold: 71.3%
> 2019 Q4 U.S. sales: 14,051
> 2020 Q4 U.S. sales: 13,345
> Year-over-year sales change: -5.0%

1. Ford Escape
> 2020 inventory unsold: 90.4%
> 2019 Q4 U.S. sales: 47,587
> 2020 Q4 U.S. sales: 46,743
> Year-over-year sales change: -1.8%

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.