With interest rates at a historical low right now, it’s only a matter of time before they go up again. Maybe next month, maybe next year, but it will eventually happen. These things are cyclical.

If you’re in the market for a new car, now is a pretty good time to take out a loan. If the Fed raises rates, however, what will happen? This is the first I’ve seen someone put a concrete figure on it:

…should interest rates rise later this year, some households and corporations may find themselves overleveraged as interest rates and borrowing costs rise. When looking at interest rate sensitivity by loan product, we see that auto loans rates are the most sensitive to changes in the fed funds target rate. In addition, we can see that for each one-percentage point rise in the fed funds rate, the interest rate on a 48-month new car loan rises 0.61 percentage points.

So that’s the magic number. Expect a larger increase for longer loans and used car loans.