When Will It End? Auto Sales Declined On Average 41% In February

A deepening recession and growing consumer anxiety sent U.S. automobile sales plummeting in February to levels one executive called "unsustainable."

Overall industry sales plunged more than 41 percent, from nearly 1.8 million vehicles in February 2008 to 688,909 last month, putting more pressure on General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC as they scramble to convince the federal government they are worth saving. But the dramatic drop also exposed how much the U.S. economy has weakened, making the failure of one or both of the automakers all the riskier.

GM's sales were down a staggering 53.1 percent year over year, leaving it with 18.3 percent of the U.S. market, compared to 22.9 percent a year ago, according to Autodata Corp.

There are auto show photos and then there are AutoSpies.com auto show photos!

2009 Geneva Motor Show Photo Gallery

Audi A5/S5 Cabriolet Photo Gallery

thstone - 3/4/2009 5:26:19 PM

+2 Boost

When will it end? I don't have a crystal ball, but auto sales tend to track jobs at the first order of magnitude. Economists predict that we still have about 2 million jobs to shed before we see growth again. From Nov 08 to Jan 09, the US averaged about 500,000 job losses per month. The stimulus and other factors will slow the losses to about half of that. At that point, the politicians will try to proclaim victory but we'll still be in a recession. So, doing the math says it will take about 8 months to shed the remaining 2 million jobs @ 250,000 a month. Looks like 2009 is a total write off, but there might be a turn-around for car sales in early 2010.

veyron1001 - 3/5/2009 2:32:42 PM

+1 Boost

When GM an Chrysler is filing ch 11 and not using tax payers money to make up more non existent or extremely elementary plans.

theoptimisticpessimist - 3/5/2009 5:27:44 PM

+1 Boost

Watch the banks, the more they fail, the worse it will be for the automakers.