More new-plant announcements are possible for electric vehicles but expect consolidation in the existing North America manufacturing footprint that could include shift cuts, vehicle redeployment or closures

With expectations that higher inventory at the end of the month will lead June’s results to rebound from May’s sequential decline, the second quarter's annualized rate is pegged to rise to 14.3 million units from Q1's 14.1 million. Also, year-over-year gains are forecast to resume in the third quarter and entire-2022 is expected to finish at 15.2 million units.

Although supply-chain challenges still heavily crimp most automakers’ ability to build to capacity, April’s year-over-year production gain was the first in 11 months, and Q2’s expected increase will be the first for any quarter since the year-ago period.

Geopolitics, inflation and never-ending global supply-chain challenges are heavily weighing on the North American market. In the wink of an eye, the outlook has reversed from upside bias to downside. The sales and production forecasts for 2022 have been significantly cut since the end of last year and are in danger of not showing growth from 2021. Haig Stoddard will detail the current outlook in North America for the second half of 2022 and touch on prospects for growth in 2023, highlighting signs and data indicators to watch for that point to more strength or weakness.

With Tesla’s hefty growth expected to continue, further boosted by strong gains from other automakers, U.S. BEV sales are expected to maintain April-like increases for the rest of the year.

Initial modeling projects annualized sales in May will rise from April, but inventory posts another month-to-month downturn before turning up in June.