Gas prices continue to plunge, and this trend is in part driving sustained wholesale price strength for trucks. The truck segments — pickups, in particular — performed extremely well as far as retention goes in the lanes last year, and the same trend is showing up in 2016.

According to the latest Black Book Market Insights report, this past week trucks saw a “strong period” of retention, while cars put in a weaker performance.

“Trucks experienced the smallest week-over-week depreciation seen this year,” Anil Goyal, vice president of automotive valuation and analytics, said in the report.

Specifically, trucks saw prices fall by 0.28 percent or $42 last week, while cars took a hit of 0.37 percent or $38.

The car segment decline was significantly higher than the same week last year, when cars dropped by just 0.21 percent at auction.

Two weeks ago, the midsize car segment was the first of 2016 to see a spike in value, but this past week, all car segments experienced downward pressure.

The car segment that experienced the largest price drop last week was the prestige luxury car segment with a drop of 0.65 percent or $197, followed by the near luxury car segment with a drop of 0.59 percent or $92.  

The best performing segment among the cars last week was sporty cars, which dropped by 0.30 percent or $21.

The price change at auction for trucks last week was more in line with year-over-year trends; during the same week of 2015, trucks fell by a rate of 0.25 percent.

The full-size pickup segment performed well throughout 2015, and this past week was no different. In fact, the full-size pickups’ depreciation of just 0.02 percent was the best performance the segment has seen since September of last year.

Auction sentiment in the lanes could give some insight into why prices remain strong among pickups — on top of low gas prices, there might be a supply issue, as well.

Black Book editors overheard a buyer from Tennessee state, “Good selection of cars here today, but not a lot of pickups.”

On the other end of the spectrum, the compact van segment was out in front in terms of depreciation impact for the truck segments, with a price drop of 1.93 percent or $191.