T8Auto analysis shows where to find the most generous incentives

The car market in 2020 has seen a roller coaster ride of supply and demand. Factories are up and running, car sales are resuming, and dealership inventories are in flux. It’s no wonder that it can be difficult to track down great deals. They seem to appear without rhyme or reason. That’s why Consumer Reports has been studying the available deals from different perspectives, including the brand-level view presented here.

Some models are selling for thousands of dollars off their sticker price (ahem, Volvo), while others are holding quite tight. The total average among all models with incentives is $2,077 off MSRP. And the brand with the greatest average savings is Jaguar, at $5,300.

To help our members through these challenging times, T8Auto has analyzed available discounts for our Best New Car Deals and Best Deals on SUVS. We also studied transaction prices to find where people are truly saving (see “The Most Discounted New Cars Right Now”).

There’s often quite a difference in the results from these two approaches, and in some cases, buyers are leaving a lot of money on the hood. The transaction data shows that some could negotiate a larger reduction off MSRP. That’s why it’s important to understand the market now, and find out what people are paying in your area for the models you’re considering. This information is available on the Pricing tab on the model pages.

For a different look at the available discounts, we evaluated incentives by brand to determine which ones you’ll easily score a deal from. But you still need to check those local transaction prices to be equipped to get a great deal.

Only 2020 model-year cars that have incentives are included below, and we averaged those incentives at the trim level to come up with a brand average. This doesn’t factor in models without automaker incentives, and we indicate below how many trim variants were counted in this average.

With this approach, you can readily see that Genesis is offering significant savings, on average, for its product line, while Chevrolet, Nissan, and Ram have many models without such incentives. The trend seems to be that sports cars and commercial-grade trucks are the models and trims that are most often sold without them.

There were quite a number of brands that currently don’t have traditional customer incentives, including Acura, Audi, BMW, Honda, Infiniti, Lexus, Maserati, Mercedes-Benz, Mini, Porsche, Subaru, Volkswagen, and Volvo. That doesn’t mean there’s no negotiation room on models from these brands, but you may have to work a bit harder for the savings.

We present our findings below in two charts: One with the brands organized in alphabetical order and the other ranking the brands by average savings. The second chart list the models with the largest incentives.

Do a cross-check with our other lists of deals to find specific savings on highlighted models.

See all current Best New Car Deals or use our dynamic ratings chart to create your own list of vehicles by sorting and filtering by the factors that matter most to you.

Brands With New Car Incentives

Brands Ranked by Average Incentive