AUTO SALES WILL ADD 3.4 PERCENT THIS YEAR, DEALERS PREDICT

The U.S. auto market will grow 3.4 percent this year to 15.4 million cars and trucks, the 16,000-member National Automobile Dealers Association said, as the shortage of computer chips continues to impinge on production.
The chip shortage reduced dealers’ inventories by 59 percent in December, compared to a year before, and will continue to cut the number of new cars produced at least until the second half of this year, the association said.
Until the COVID era, U.S. auto dealers sold more than 17 million vehicles each year for the previous five.
However, the chip shortage has slashed global production by 11.3 million vehicles so far, the dealer group said.
TREND FORECAST: We forecast that higher interest rates will put the brakes on the two-year auto surge.
And, the higher rates go, the deeper auto sales will fall. And, should interest rates rise too fast and too high, it will push auto sales down to Great Recession levels.