Annual US Auto Sales Fell for First Time since 2009 at GM, Ford, Fiat-Chrysler, Toyota, VW, BMW…
by Wolf Richter
WolfStreet.com
Jan 5, 2017
US “car recession” spreads among largest automakers.
The media hoopla has been deafening. In December, “new vehicles sales” – defined as the number of new cars, trucks, and SUVs that dealers sold to their customers, including fleets – rose 3.1%. That was stronger than “expected.” And in the media reports, there was euphoria between the lines.
Automakers and dealers had certainly tried. Inventories are high, layoffs and plant closings have already been announced, and so every effort was made to move the iron and pull out the year. No incentive was spared to get the job done.
With this gain in December, total sales for 2016 edged up 0.4% to a record 17.55 million vehicles, according to Autodata. Sales of light trucks and SUVs rose 7.2% for the year, but sales of cars sagged 8.1%. Gasoline is cheap, and Americans love big implements.
Car sales at GM dropped 4.3% in 2016, at Ford 13.0%, and at Fiat Chrysler a catastrophic 33.5%! Plants that build cars were the ones mostly (but not exclusively) hit by shutdowns and layoffs. Then there was the whole to-do about Trump, Ford, and the plant in Mexico.
Alas, while some automakers posted record sales for the year, the biggest automakers were not among them. And you probably didn’t see this in the media unless you started digging through the data yourself. Somehow this one slipped by the media’s attention. Because something ugly happened in 2016, something we haven’t seen since 2009.
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