
Light vehicle sales by fuel type in the U.S. 2021
The current state of the U.S. market
In January 2021, light trucks represented over 77 percent of the vehicle sales in the United States, making it the best-selling vehicle type in the country. A year earlier, in 2021, light vehicle retail sales rapidly rose to over 14.9 million units. This was a 3.1 percent year-on-year increase compared to 2020, which had recorded a drop in sales due to the economic downturn and lower demand brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. Motor vehicle production in the U.S. also started to recover, with the country’s output rising by just under four percent between 2020 and 2021. The manufacturing sector's slow recovery was in part due to the global automotive semiconductor shortage, which impacted the industry through 2021 and the beginning of 2022.The U.S. motor vehicle and parts retail industry boasted revenues of 1.25 trillion U.S. dollars in 2020, an increase compared to the decrease of the overall light vehicle sale volume.