Ten years ago, a record 17.6 million cars, trucks and SUVs were sold in the United States. Some forecasts indicate that the country may no longer come close to this figure.
Analysts at consulting firm Bain & Company said several signs indicate the market is poised to contract even further. Declining birth rates, behavioral changes, high car prices and a growing range of alternatives could cause sales to decline by more than 2 million units by 2040, according to their analysis.
These indications point to a future in which automakers compete fiercely for a shrinking number of customers, said Mark Gottfredson, a partner at Bain & Company.
The auto industry has historically depended on a 1 percent annual growth rate that keeps up with the increase in the overall population, Gottfredson said. But around the world, government statistics show that population growth has slowed and some countries are already experiencing decline.
“It’s the perfect storm, isn’t it,” Gottfredson said. “It starts with population decline. You’re no longer a growing industry. You’re a declining industry. You’re a declining industry in an age where technology is disrupting everything.”
The fertility rate in the United States in 2025 was approximately 1.6 births per woman. Although it is not as low as in some countries in Europe or Asia, it is considered below the replacement rate of 2.1, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
Bain said that was offset by relatively high immigration — about a million people coming to the United States, according to the historical average cited. But the company said it expects restrictive immigration policies to continue for the next 15 years, cutting historic net migration rates in half over the past 20 years, meaning they could again reach the low levels seen in 2019.
The behavior of this remaining population has changed – in part because of high prices and affordable alternatives, according to Bain. Today, half of 16-year-olds don’t have a driver’s license, compared to nearly 70 percent of 16-year-olds between 1966 and 1984, Gottfredson said. This statistic might reflect a simple delay rather than a complete refusal: Bain’s research suggests that most people still get a license at age 25.
Yet the share of new vehicle registrations among people aged 18 to 34 fell from 12% in the first quarter of 2021 to less than 10% by mid-2025, according to S&P Global Mobility. Buyers 55 and older account for nearly half of all new registrations and have held the largest share for eight consecutive quarters, the company said.
“The driving force behind this is affordability,” said Craig Daitch, founder and president of Telemetry, a company that does market research for the auto industry. Monthly payments on new vehicles have increased 30% over four years, and nearly one in five new vehicles now have a payment greater than $1,000 per month, he added.
AutoForecast Solutions, a forecasting company, expects new car sales in the United States to remain relatively stable, around 16 million, through 2033, the farthest year for which the company releases estimates.
“When we look to the future, younger people are more likely to use Uber or Lyft when going somewhere,” Sam Fiorani, vice president of global vehicle forecasting for the company. “We still see groups of young people who love driving and want a new car, but fewer of them can afford it.”
If robo-taxis become widely available and affordable over the next 15 years, the share of the population authorized could drop by about 2 to 3 percentage points, to 85 percent, according to a Bain study. The number of vehicles per driver could increase from 1.2 to 1.1, which would equate to 10 to 20 percent of U.S. households losing a vehicle.
The projections Gottfredson shared with CNBC are revisions. It had previously targeted 2030 as the year volumes would fall below 14 million, but said it had changed those assumptions because autonomous vehicles are taking longer than expected to arrive.
However, population figures are taken into account.
“We already know how many people have been born and how many people will be old enough to drive a vehicle at 16 years from now. So we can say with some certainty that when we get to 2040, we will see some decline in the United States. This decline is even worse in places like Europe and in places like most of Asia.”
Gottfredson said the most direct indicator of potential future decline is the rate at which vehicles are “deregistered,” that is, when they are taken off the road and either scrapped or exported to another market, as is the case with used vehicles.
In 2000, the delisting rate was about 6 percent, according to the Bain report. In 2025, the rate was around 5%. Gottfredson said that rate could drop to 4.4% by 2040. That’s mainly because vehicles are lasting longer — reaching a record 12.8 years on the road in 2025, according to S&P Global Mobility.
This could be reversed. The longevity of electric vehicle batteries is still uncertain. It’s also unclear how long automakers will be willing or able to update software that is increasingly vital to new cars.
However, automotive forecasters say that with vehicle prices so high, the industry will have to find a way to keep cars in service.
“Today’s vehicles cannot have a five- to 10-year limitation,” Fiorani said. “It’s not realistic for someone who spends $50,000 or $100,000 that it will become waste in less than a decade.”
If these trends continue, the U.S. auto industry risks becoming even more competitive. Consumers already have around 450 nameplates to choose from in the country.
“The competition in the United States is going to be fierce,” Gottfredson said. “There are too many car manufacturers and too many brands competing to attract consumers. The market will have to consolidate.”