(February 23, 2018) SANTA MONICA, Calif. — Edmunds forecasts that 1,273,428 new cars and trucks will be sold in the U.S. in February for an estimated seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of 16.8 million. This reflects a 10.8 percent increase in sales from January but a 4.1 percent decrease from February 2017.

"This year is going to be a bitter but necessary pill for the auto industry to swallow," said Jessica Caldwell, Edmunds executive director of industry analysis.

"Automakers are slowing production of passenger cars to react to declining demand, and are also trying to find the right balance between keeping sales strong and becoming too dependent on costly incentives. The industry is still in a fairly healthy place, but it may not feel like it since the last few years have been in record territory."

While Presidents Day weekend marked the first auto sales event of the year, Edmunds analysts say automakers likely didn't pull out all the stops to get customers into the showrooms. Average incentive spend hit a record high of $3,400 in 2017, and Edmunds analysts say that wasn't a sustainable level.

"In a down market every sale is important, but this year automakers seem to be a bit more measured in how they're using incentives," Caldwell said. "Aggressive incentives generally only pull forward existing demand, and automakers seem to be learning the lesson that you can only borrow so much from the future before you end up paying for it."

Edmunds estimates that retail SAAR will come in at 13.3 million vehicles in February, with fleet transactions accounting for 20.4 percent of total sales. An estimated 3.5 million used vehicles will be sold in February, for a SAAR of 39.1 million (compared to 3.1 million — or a SAAR of 38.9 million — in January).