While current events and industry market conditions are guaranteed to change from year to year, the bench of experts ready to dissect it all always stays deep.

Remarketers will hear the latest macro- and micro- economic analysis of the wholesale used vehicle market and the wider business sector beyond on Thursday, March 27 at 1:30 pm during the Conference of Automotive Remarketing.

The session, moderated by CAR emcee Charlie Vogelheim, will include:

• Jeremy Robb, senior director of economic and industry insights at Cox Automotive

• John Coles, senior director of data science and analytics at ACV Auctions

• Tom Kontos, chief economist at ADESA Auctions U.S.

• Dr. Alex Yurchenko, senior VP, and chief data science officer at Black Book and MOTOR

Another guarantee is that 2024 already bears plenty of trouble in the world, which means remarketers, auctions, and consignors have parallel developments to monitor. With a volatile political climate and an economy still showing abnormality, CAR attendees will get the latest numbers that can help navigate a year attracting enough unexpected drama.

“Inflation and interest rates will continue to make affordability a key issue in vehicle markets,” Kontos said. “Tight supply will only gently ease in 2024, and this will keep a bottom over how much further prices will soften.”

Yurchenko will talk about current and future wholesale environment: prices, residual values, and inventory."Used inventory will see a significant drop due to reduction of lease returns at the end of 2024," he said. "Wholesale prices are declining but will remain elevated vs. pre-pandemic levels. It seems that we are settling into a new pattern of seasonality – strong first half of the year and higher depreciation in the second half."

Robb outlined several key points the audience can anticipate:

• Off lease maturities will begin to decline in the second half of 2024 and continue to impact the industry for several years – implications to used vehicle sourcing and CPO programs.

• Lease equity is still positive but declining for the industry, with some brands fairing worse than others, which can impact lease returns and dealer sourcing.

• Delinquencies and defaults have been rising, and they led repossessions higher in 2023. But high interest rates have hurt demand for loan growth, which will constrain future defaults barring a recession.

• The automotive market is entering a period where we see more normal behavior but don’t expect values to return to pre-pandemic levels. The new vehicles sold in 2022 and 2023 at all-time high prices enter the wholesale market and lift the overall value of vehicles in the wholesale pool.

CAR, partnered with the International Automotive Remarketers Alliance, is being held March 26-28 at the Hilton Phoenix at the Peak in Phoenix, Arizona. Registration discounts have been extended to Wednesday, March 6.