The reason U.S. car sales surprised Wall Street? People still overspend on cars.

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Sales got a boost from a “heavy push” of fleet sales and “a U.S. car buyer who has stayed resilient in the face of high prices and record auto loan rates,” analysts at Cox Automotive said recently.

“Consumers always find a way to buy new wheels despite the circumstances,” Cox Automotive chief economist Jonathan Smoke said in a recent presentation. “People often make what economists would consider irrational decisions when it comes to cars. They overspend, they break budgets, they forgo other expenses in order to get the ride they want.”

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Cox recently raised its expectations for 2023 new-car sales to 15 million, from 14.1 million, including retail sales of 12.4 million vehicles, from expectations of 11.9 million.

Analysts at Deutsche Bank pegged the U.S. SAAR, or seasonally adjusted annual rate, at 15.8 million vehicles in June, outpacing their estimate of 15.5 million, and up from 15.1 million in May.

The sales pace “improved materially” from June 2022, when automakers and consumers faced some shortages, they said in a note Thursday. On pricing, they cited midmonth data suggesting that average transaction prices fell slightly from May to June, to about $45,800.

“In the months ahead, we still expect improving vehicle production to enable a modest increase in SAAR in the context of a broader pressure on U.S. consumer, and inventories to steadily grow, eventually pressuring down pricing,” the Deustche Bank analysts said.

The year’s SAAR is likely to stay around 15 million vehicles, a “solid improvement” over last year’s 13.8 million and slightly above 2021’s 14. 9 million, they said.

Cox analysts, for their part, pegged June SAAR at 15.7 million vehicles, higher than Cox’s previous estimate of 15.2 million.

The second half will likely present “fewer upside surprises,” the Cox analysts noted. The automobile market will still be limited in terms of total available supply, and demand may also be dented by higher prices and interest rates, they said.

Both prices and interest rates are unlikely to come down enough to stimulate demand above what the market can bear. The auto industry is likely at a turning point, finding more balance between supply and demand, they said.

That balanced market, they noted, “is expected to deliver small but more predictable changes in sales and fewer headlines about big price changes.”