U.S. Auto Sales Stall, Casting Doubt on Rebound

Source: Bloomberg

U.S. auto sales have stalled, casting doubt on a rebound this year as persistent unemployment and tighter lending deter buyers.

Light-vehicle deliveries in July, to be released tomorrow, may have run at an 11.8 million seasonally adjusted annual rate, the average estimate of 12 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. That would trail the 12.5 million rate in the first half.

The auto industry may lose 1.5 million in projected sales in 2011, according to consultant AlixPartners LLP. The economy isn’t picking up as fast as anticipated, and the drag may continue beyond this year, AlixPartners said. That may put a return to average annual sales of 16.8 million vehicles from 2000 to 2007 out of reach. Unemployment reached the highest level this year in June.

“This curve of unemployment looks like it’s got a lot of legs,” Mark Wakefield, an AlixPartners director in Southfield, Michigan, said in a telephone interview. “This is one of the first recent cycles where demand is not going to go back above its prior peak, because there are just so many structural things that are different this time around.”

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Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-01/auto-sales-stall-as-unemployment-puts-peak-out-of-reach-cars.html

Crude oil prices worldwide continue to rise as other economies compete for a larger share of production.

Auto use in the US must necessarily decline. It is best that we not spend our money on cars that we won't be able to afford to drive.

I'm 45 years old and have only bought used cars. I've had my current used car for 10 years.

25% over the last 18 MONTHS,

true for just about every major durable product.

Time for some of those changes that were promised, President Hoover.

Not the ones you delivered.

The new jobs are McCheap jobs... Sorry, but min wage doesn't support a family, let alone a new car payment. On top of that, many people's credit scores have been hit hard. Many cannot even qualify for a loan anymore. AND then there are people like myself who are looking for a car, but will wait until the car I have sells. After that even, we are looking for a used option, cash paid, no monthly payment. Something I'm calling a scooter car.. something with less gas consumption to commute the kid around in and not care to put lots of miles on. We live in FL and have found quite a few cars listed that were owned by older people who barely drove the car. So, even if it is 6 or 7 yrs old, its like a brand new car. (I'm kind of hoping that my hubby's grandparents will give me theirs. One hasn't driven in years; the other has alzheimers and his Dr. doesn't want him driving at all. Just a matter of deciding if they want to let us "drive" it or pass it onto us.) But if the gas guzzling mustang (hubby's car) sells first, we will have to replace it with either grandparents or buy a new- used vehicle.

My husband has made the ultimate decision, finally after I've tweeted in his little ear, that, unless we hit the lotto, we will never buy a new car with car payments. The moment you sign the papers and drive off the lot, the car depreciates in value a couple of grand. Like I said, I'm hoping to be gifted the grandparents Honda FIT.. It would be perfect scooter car for my little son and myself to get back and forth to his school and do grocery shopping in and all. Fingers crossed that I can get that.. my husband knows I'm so smitten with that little FIT he was even thinking of offering to buy it off the grandparents for me... LOL.

Anyway, its just not all that practicle in the new normal of "sacrafice" to buy a new, new car. Perhaps, the prices will begin to fall to keep pace with the "new" normal of wages? I suppose that is the problem at the end of the day. The greedy a$$es at the top of the food chain have pushed this me, me, me meme for so long, they are now running out of people to take money from. It would seem that at some point they will be eating themselves. I'm really hoping that the demand for public transportation will eventually push the US to invest in the infrastructure. The greedmeisters still need the proles to labor for them. They will eventually need to support a system of getting their min-wage workers to the slave-mart.

it would've been nice to have that high speed rail thingy that Republicans didn't want in their back yard... Figures.

They fix everything! Tax cuts...then something something...demand restored! Poof, profit!!

That way it can trickle down to the steerage.