Although June and July were some of the worst months in recent history for new car sales, it looks as though August is shaping up to be even worse. Gas has receded from its record high of $4.11 in June, but high gas prices have clearly left a bad taste in consumers’ mouths.
According to Edmunds, August will see a 14.4 percent decline in new car sales. That promises to be a sharper decline than in July, which saw sales drop off by 13.2 percent, and is well below the overall market – which is down 10.5 percent through July.
As one could predict, the Big Three are primed to be August’s biggest losers. Chrysler will likely see the biggest falloff – with sales predicted to fall by 34 percent – although General Motors won’t be too far behind with a sales decline of 27.5 percent.
“GM’s employee-discount promotion enabled it to lessen the impact,” Edmund’s Jesse Toprak told Automotive News. “It would have been more than 35 percent without the incentives in the last part of August.”
Despite another disappointing month for Chrysler and GM, both Honda and Nissan are expected to post slight gains.
Unfortunately for the auto industry as a whole, the U.S. market isn’t expected to rebound until late 2009.
Complete August sales results will be released on September 2nd.
