Jeanmarie Gonzalez used to rely on AC Transit and Muni for her daily commute from Oakland to San Francisco. She cares about the environment and accepted a longer commute to reduce her carbon footprint.
But when the coronavirus pandemic hit, the calculus changed.
So, Gonzalez bought a used Honda Civic.
“I’d rather drive than be on public transit multiple hours a day,” said Gonzalez, an immunology researcher who still goes into work at her lab.
Gonzalez is far from alone. The pandemic has made many Bay Area residents, who might normally prioritize the environment, avoid transit and ride-hailing services and buy their own cars instead.
Nationally, car sales have slumped by more than a quarter on average for most major manufacturers since the beginning of the pandemic. In California, new-car sales in the state fell about 24% for the first four months of 2020 compared to a year earlier, according to estimates from the California New Car Dealers Association. But the Bay Area and other transit-centric hubs are now seeing a rise in sales, as people flock to “COVID cars.”
“It’s an absolute fact that consumer behavior has changed in a lasting way from the pandemic,” said Henry Melendez, the location general manager of CarMax Capitol Expressway in San Jose. In addition to people avoiding public transit, some customers, he said, are even seeking larger vehicles to make it easier to travel with the family.
It’s not just essential workers. People are looking to get out of town.
“We just feel a little cooped up in the city,” said Kayla Henson, a San Francisco resident who recently bought a car with her husband to make it easier to travel, shop for groceries and get around locally. It was a long-contemplated purchase hastened by the pandemic.
Tesla, the high-end Palo Alto electric car manufacturer, outperformed competitors and saw sales fall only slightly during the pandemic. But the lower end of the market is also thriving, with stronger demand reflected in higher prices.
Used car prices nationally hit a record high in July, rising 11% compared with this time last year, according to data from the Manheim used vehicle value index. A 1- or 2-year-old Toyota Tacoma is now selling for the price of a new vehicle of the same type, “which is ridiculous,” said Alex Dimont, general manager of the Diamond Auto Sales used car dealership in San Francisco.
Four months ago, Dimont thought his company would go out of business. He closed the dealership as shelter-in-place orders took effect. Since reopening, however, sales are up about 30% compared with last year.
Other San Francisco dealers are seeing similar success. Vehicle sales at San Francisco Toyota have been doing very well for June and July, said Doug Donnellan, vice president and general manager of the dealership. The car service side of his business has also performed better than expected.
“People know they are going to be spending more time in their cars,” and so they are getting them repaired and tuned up, he said.
At Honda SF, fewer people are buying cars to drive for Uber and Lyft, yet sales are still up year over year because of first-time buyers, according to Jim Nguyen, the dealership’s general manager.
Buying a car is a different experience these days. Test-driving happens less frequently, vehicles are sanitized between drives, purchasing and financing happens more often online or over the phone, and showrooms are set up for social distancing, dealership managers said.
Shift, a San Francisco startup founded in 2013 that sells cars online, saw sales rise by 51% from March to May. “Less expensive cars just took off,” said co-CEO Toby Russell.
The long-term future remains a question mark for Shift and other car dealers. Usually summer is the peak season for car sales, which then subside when children return to school. If schools do not reopen and parents continue to work from home, Russell wonders whether the sales peak might sustain itself through the fall for the first time.
But remote work also means less need for a commuting vehicle. On the other hand, the decline in air travel means families may seek more car-accessible vacations.
“There is a risk that the pandemic could reinforce longer-term travel behavior toward more auto ownership and use,” Susan Shaheen, co-director of the Transportation Sustainability Research Center at UC Berkeley, said in an email. “However, these impacts are uncertain. There is also a possibility of a longer-term increase in telework.”
It’s a tough call for many people. “I couldn’t afford a hybrid, and I didn’t have a place to plug in an electric car, so my options were limited,” said Gonzalez, the lab worker who commutes from the East Bay. “I prioritize human health in general over environmental issues, even though the environment is very important to me.”
The future remains difficult to predict, even as traffic creeps back toward normal. But Dimont has one piece of advice for people who already own a car. Because of the rising demand, “the best thing to do is sell a car right now,” he said.
Anna Kramer is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: anna.kramer@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @anna_c_kramer
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August 02, 2020 at 06:00PM
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Car sales surge as Bay Area shifts away from transit - San Francisco Chronicle
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