Minivans are making a huge comeback. Here's why

If you want proof that the COVID-19 pandemic didn’t affect everyone equally, look no further than car-buying trends. While overall car sales in 2020 were down 14.6% year-over-year, dealer profits ballooned by 48%, according to 2020 survey results from the National Automobile Dealers Association. Tighter inventories, reduced workforces, and less—if any—need for dealer incentives all contributed to the spike in dealer profits.

Profits were also aided by the kinds of cars being sold off the lot. Sales of vehicles priced between $80,000 and $90,000 in 2020 grew 91% year-over-year, according to data from J.D. Power, while sales of vehicles priced below $20,000 dropped 30% year-over-year. This is largely because wealthier Americans, whose jobs were more likely to weather the economic storm, didn’t see income levels drop, while poorer Americans, whose service industry jobs were cut early on, lost some or all of their wages.

An increase in luxury car sales isn’t the only car-buying trend we’ve seen spring up over the last year. CoPilot analyzed its data of more than 30 million car sales via the car-buying app between January and December 2020 to highlight 10 key car-buying trends during COVID-19. The analysis looks at different car makes, models, production years, months of purchase, fuel types, and car body types to determine which cars people were most interested in over the past year. Datapoints in the forthcoming list show trends drawn from CoPilot data but do not cover all national vehicle sales.

Keep reading to explore highlights of our findings, from the state with the most vehicle sales to which motor vehicle company sold the most cars in 2020.