The massive tariffs announced by President Trump have hammered global stock markets and spawned talk of a worldwide recession. But it’s not all bad news. New car dealers are doing great — for now — as US consumers rush to buy before the 25 percent tariff on imported cars and car parts results in higher prices.
“Our daily volume has doubled, because customers worry about if, because of the tariffs, the prices will go up dramatically,’’ said Dean Li, a sales manager who works at a Toyota dealership in Boston. “So they want to buy a car earliest as possible to lock down the comparatively lower price.’’
On the opposite side of the state, car dealer Jeb Balise tells a similar story.
“Business is brisk,’’ said Balise, president of Balise Auto Group, which operates 26 dealerships in Western Massachusetts. “People that were thinking about buying a car are definitely advancing their shopping. We saw it in March and we’ve seen no slowdown in April.’’
On Wednesday, Trump announced a 90-day pause in his plan to impose sweeping “reciprocal’’ tariffs on about 180 countries. But Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that the freeze doesn’t apply to automobile tariffs. The threat of higher tariffs helped boost US new car sales by 11 percent in March, according to research firm Wards Intelligence. And throughout Massachusetts, thrifty consumers are scrambling to buy now.
Vaccine development scientist Annette Ferrari said she and her husband, Rob Colonna, had been in no hurry to replace their 2015 Mini Cooper. But then came the tariffs.
“I don’t want to get caught, three months from now, needing a new car when prices are up 25 percent. It would be vastly more expensive,’’ said Ferrari, who lives in Boston’s South End. “If we had more time, we’d be more thoughtful, but we really feel like we have to do it now.’’
They weren’t looking for a Ferrari; instead, they considered three promising Volvo models they’d spotted on the website of a nearby dealership. But by the time Ferrari and Colonna got there, the cars were already gone. Ferrari said they’d lined up visits to two other Volvo dealerships on Tuesday evening and that they expected to buy a car that day.
Ethan Warren, a novelist from Norwell, just took delivery of a Toyota Grand Highlander ordered last year with a host of options. The vehicle arrived at Braintree Toyota last week.
“We felt really lucky that we acted in this timeline,’’ said Warren. “We would’ve been in a very different situation even just a week later.’’ Warren described the feeling as movie hero Indiana Jones grabbing his hat from under the door at the last possible second.
How many tariff-free vehicles are still available? “It’s different, brand by brand,’’ said Sean Tucker, lead editor at car market research firm Kelley Blue Book. The less popular the car, the better your chances. For instance, Tucker said there’s about a one-month supply of new Toyotas at US car dealers, while the stockpile of Dodge vehicles is enough for about four months of sales.
Kevin Roberts, director of economic and market intelligence at Boston-based online car shopping site CarGurus, said shoppers might have to look further afield to find what they want. Instead of searching online for cars within 25 miles of home, Roberts said shoppers might need to expand the search to 50 or 100 miles to find a tariff-free car.
But shoppers who resign themselves to the tariff may not feel its full weight. Karl Brauer, executive analyst at ISeeCars.com, a Woburn-based online car retailer and publisher of market research data, predicted that the retail prices for new cars would go up only about 10 to 15 percent over the next year, with manufacturers absorbing the rest of the tariff.
Brauer is also betting that the pain won’t last. “I think there’s a good chance that the tariffs will be adjusted in a relatively short time span,’’ he said. That would be good news for buyers of new and used cars, said Brauer, because elevated new car prices drive shoppers to buy used vehicles, thus driving up their prices.
According to ISeeCars research, nationwide used car prices declined in March, the first dip in over a year. And according to Kelley Blue Book, average used car prices in New England declined in March from a year ago, slipping from $29,161 to $28,663. In Massachusetts, the year-over-year average for March edged upward from $29,161 to $29,336.
But Kelley Blue Book’s Tucker said he’s seeing the first signs of an uptick, as wholesale auction prices for used cars have begun to creep higher in recent weeks. “That means about six to eight weeks out we’re going to see a spike start,’’ he said. And the used car spike will be especially sharp if the Trump tariff lingers throughout the year.
Balise, who is also president of the Massachusetts State Automobile Dealers Association, said automakers are all over the map in responding to the tariff threat. “We’ve had a couple [of] manufacturers with a long-term outlook that have come right out and said, ‘Listen guys. We’re not increasing prices anytime soon … don’t panic. Don’t worry, we’re going to be smart.’’’ Balise declined to identify those carmakers.
But Balise said another manufacturer, also unnamed, is telling dealers it will pass along the tariff cost, and slap labels on its new cars so consumers see why the price has gone up. “It just sounds to me like they’re overreacting quicker than they have to,’’ Balise said.
That’s because Balise, like Brauer, thinks the tariffs will soon be reduced as the Trump administration cuts deals with the European Union, Canada, and Mexico. If that happens within the next couple of months, the damage will be minimal, said Balise. But if the tariffs last much longer, it’ll be a serious problem, as prices soar and auto imports slump.
“A lot of people are saying, are you panicked?’’ said Balise. “Well, give me 60 days and then maybe I’ll be panicked.’’
Hiawatha Bray can be reached at hiawatha.bray@globe.com.
Maren Halpin can be reached at maren.halpin@globe.com.
