U.S. Vehicle Sales Fall For The Fifth Straight Month

For the fifth straight month, sales of cars and light trucks in the United States have decreased, Reuters reports.

As of the end of July, the annualized pace of sales in the U.S. dropped to just 16.73 million vehicles, well down on the 17.8 million vehicles that were sold across the country in 2016.

Interestingly, it wasn’t just cars that sold poorly last month. Combined sales of large pickups fell by 4 per cent in July while sales of large SUVs declined by a significant 20 per cent. This comes despite the fact that the SUV and pickup truck market should be the strongest it’s ever been.

On the back of these results, GM, Ford, FCA, Hyundai and Nissan all cut rental car sales in July and are now more willing to temporarily shut down factories to reduce inventories.

According to LMC Automotive forecaster Jeff Schuster, the Detroit Three may actually have too many factories in North America, revealing that the annual sales pace of 2017 compared to last year equates to four assembly plants.

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