Filed under: Car Buying

2009 was not a good year for car sales. No surprises there. An interesting side effect of lowered sales last year, though, is that the total number of vehicles in the overall U.S. car fleet dropped. There were 250 million cars here in 2008, and only 246 million at the end of 2009. We may have been buying fewer cars than we usually do in a year – there were around 10 million sold in 2009 – but we still got rid of 14 million units.

Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute, will be speaking to reporters Wednesday about why he thinks these numbers mean that “America’s century-old love affair with the automobile may be coming to an end.” Part of Brown’s reasoning is that he sees the shrinking U.S. fleet trend continuing through 2020 thanks to market saturation, economic uncertainty and a “declining interest in cars among young people who have grown up in cities,” among other factors. The end result? Brown believes the shrinking fleet “will also largely eliminate the need for building new streets and highways, and will set the stage for increased investment in public transit and high-speed intercity rail.” Is Brown on to something, or will a widely-expected rebound in new car sales due to pent-up demand render his argument spurious? Check out the EPI’s press release after the jump, then be sure to leave your thoughts on the matter in ‘Comments.’

[Source: Earth Policy Institute | Image: kodiax2 - C.C. License 2.0]

Continue reading Report: Number of cars in the U.S. dropped by four million in 2009 – is America’s love affair ending?

Report: Number of cars in the U.S. dropped by four million in 2009 – is America’s love affair ending? originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 04 Jan 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Report: Number of cars in the U.S. dropped by four million in 2009 – is America’s love affair ending?

Filed under: Car Buying, Earnings/Financials

This just in from Hard Numbers News: From 2000 to 2007, an average of 16.8 million vehicles were sold in the States. In 2008, that figure dropped to 13.2 million. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the tally for 2009 is expected to put the sales needle somewhere around 10.4 million. According to Bloomberg, that would make last year the worst for new car sales since 1982, when there was not only a recession but also 25 percent fewer Americans.

The good news: sales began to rise at the end of 2009, having sustained themselves nicely after the revelry of cash-for-clunkers. The final data isn’t in yet, but Bloomberg‘s survey of analysts suggests two months of gains in November and December. Predictions estimate that Ford, Toyota, Honda and Nissan saw increases, with General Motors and Chrysler looking at slipping sales.

The silver lining? Meager sales could “indicate significant pent-up demand.” That kettle of demand is going to take some time to boil, but a rise in household spending is penciled in for late 2010, along with greater availability of credit, and a drop in unemployment numbers is in the forecast as well. The road to recovery will be a slow one, but hopefully with the turn of the calendar year will come a turn in fortunes for the U.S. economy.

[Source: Bloomberg | Image: Scott Olson/Getty]

Bloomberg: U.S. auto sales “probably rose” in December originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 01 Jan 2010 16:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Bloomberg: U.S. auto sales “probably rose” in December