The fastest-selling new car in America may surprise you

It’s no secret that the new and used car markets are insane right now, but there’s more than one facet to the issue. iSeeCars, a car search engine that conducts market research, recently published a list of the fastest-selling new and used cars. The data supports much of what we already know, but the numbers behind some of the models may surprise you.

The fastest-selling new car in June 2022 was the Subaru Crosstrek, with an average time of 12.9 days to sell. The average sales price for the Crosstrek in June was $30,299, so people are buying higher-end trims of the car, which in base form starts at around $24,000. The Honda Civic, Subaru Forester, Honda CR-V, and Subaru Impreza round out the top five.

All of those vehicles’ average sales prices were well above their respective models’ starting prices, meaning people are buying more expensive models or are paying markups. Neither of those things are favorable for buyers and offer only a partial benefit to dealers who are struggling to find cars to sell.

Karl Brauer, iSeeCars’ Executive Analyst, notes that high gas prices are driving some of the craze for smaller and hybrid vehicles. The Honda Civic and CR-V are great examples, as the automaker can’t keep enough inventory of either model on dealers’ lots. Civic sales decreased by 54 percent and CR-V sales by 45 percent compared to 2020 because there aren’t enough units to go around.

Things are even crazier on the used car side of things. The Tesla Model Y is the fastest-selling used car right now, but the $69,784 average sales price outpaces the EV’s new price by more than 10%, and that’s for the range-topping Model Y Performance model. The Prius Prime isn’t much better. At number two on the list of fastest selling used cars, its average price of $31,867 is around $1,400 more than a brand-new mid-range XLE trim.

The same is true for many cars on the list, where the average used sale price outpaced new-car MSRPs. Used car prices are partly driven by new car availability and customer demand. The wait to receive a newly ordered Tesla Model Y stretches into 2023, so, understandably, people are willing to pay for the privilege of skipping that line.

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