“Car Recession” now expected to spread to 2017. A “car recession,” as the industry is calling it, or the “so-called car recession,” as Ford called it on July 28 in its 10-Q filing, is taking hold. The more politically correct term that Ford also used is the “plateauing” of industry volume. Which means, after six boom years, sales are going down. They’re not crashing, for the moment. They’re facing tough headwinds, and so they’re drifting lower, despite enormous industry efforts to prevent it, and they’re now expected to drift lower next year as well. Steven Szakaly, chief economist of the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA), which represents about 16,500 new vehicle dealers in the US, forecast that sales of new cars and light trucks in 2017 will drop to 17.1 million. “We are headed toward a stable market for US auto sales, not a growing market,” he said. “The industry has achieved record sales, and pent-up demand is effectively spent.” Full Story: http://wolfstreet.com/2016/11/22/strongest-pillar-of-the-shaky-us-economy-has-cracked/
Hi Al: Thanks for posting this. As we have seen from the monthly sales reports, sales flattened out about 3 months ago and only a few OEMs are experiencing sales upticks. Hyundai, Subaru and Audi come to mind. All the while incentives are reaching ridiculous levels. I think the market is still doing well at near record levels but it may be awhile until we reach last years record setting results. In the mean time, Marian and I are looking and my mom is looking hard too. Who else? Wayne
"Who else?" [Raises hand.] Starting to shop. Predisposed to like Prius Prime with the extra safety technology. BUT expecting prices to compress, both used and new. (Remembering also a lot of nice higher-$ vehicles that are coming off leases soon too.) Expect to also look at new/used Mazda 3/6, and the Ioniq. Edit: also amazed to see used BMW i3's (2 years, 20000 miles) now offered at around $20-22k. Even if I accord zero weight to the BMW brand, that's getting to be a great bop-around-town price. Simple math.
When we bought our 2010 Prius, late in the year in 2010, the lot was awash in unsold Prius. I was in the same dealership (getting maintenance supplies) recently and asked a service writer if they were getting the 2016's in. He said they were coming in, in small numbers, all reserved, spoken for. This seems a "sea change" to me, maybe the numbers (so far) are not that different, but the dealership is being much more cautious.
The news just keeps getting better for buyers as my Acura RSX turns 190kmiles and Hyundai is building my new Ioniq as I write. The only thing that could throw a monkey wrench into my blue sky is heavy import tariffs if Trump gets his way.
