AUTO SALES SLUMP

New car sales were down 40 percent in the U.S. and 46 percent in Europe during this year’s second quarter, compared to a year earlier.
General Motors reported a 34-percent decline in U.S. sales; Toyota’s sales were off by a third, and Fiat Chrysler’s by 39 percent. In Europe, new car sales plummeted 78 percent in April and recovered to only a 57-percent deficit in May.
In China, the auto industry’s relative bright spot, June sales were up 11.6 percent from June 2019, the first quarterly rise in two years and a record volume for the month, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) reported. The second quarter as a whole saw the country’s auto sales rise 10.4 percent.
Ford’s second-quarter China sales gained 3 percent year-on-year; Toyota’s jumped 23 percent.
Those figures record the number of cars that dealers bought from manufacturers. The cars are moving more slowly off dealers’ lots, registering a 3.4-percent decline in retail sales from April through June.
Electric vehicle sales are down 37 percent so far this year.
CAAM expects retail sales to gain traction later this year as dealers finish rebuilding their inventories and offer discounts and other incentives to buyers.
Still, CAAM expects China’s sales for the year to fall 11 percent below 2019’s, continuing a three-year decline.