JD Power quantifies the impact of the Clunker program

By Peter Boockvar - August 20th, 2009, 9:03PM

J.D. Power and Associates today is quantifying in their estimation the impact on auto sales this year due to the clunker program and the extent that it steals sales from 2010. They said that based on data seen thus far, August will see the first 1mm+ unit sales (includes fleet sales) month since last year. “This marks the first increase in retail sales (not including fleet) volume since June 2007.” They raised their 2009 retail sales estimate by 300,000 vehicles to 8.6mm units but cut their 2010 retail sales estimate by 100,000 to 9.5mm “in light of the expected pull-ahead sales as a result of the CARS program and a flatter than anticipated recovery.” This steroid shot into the economy is about to end and as with any drug, after the hangover, when it wears off you feel like you did before and thus there is nothing sustainable to it.

PERMALINK
Category: MacroNotes.

Comments

Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data, ability to repeat discredited memes, and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Also, be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor even implied. Any irrelevancies you can mention will also be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous.

3 Responses to “JD Power quantifies the impact of the Clunker program”

ben22 Says:
August 20th, 2009 at 7:27 pm
boy, I wonder if DeDude and others that thought that

1. it didn’t pull demand forward and

2. it was such a great success

read this….

doubt it.
Winston Munn Says:
August 20th, 2009 at 7:34 pm
I am glad to see verification of what I have believed and wrote about in these comments – all that is accomplished by gimmicks like holding interest rates too low for too long is a compression of economic time, that future sales are simply brought forward to give the illusion of prosperity to those living now but will evaporate like the mist when reality steps through the door and the party ends.
DeDude Says:
August 22nd, 2009 at 3:12 pm
300K more in 2009 and 100K less in 2010 should give a positive gain of 200K. I would love to do that kind of deal any time. My arguments have never even been based on the idea that there would be a net gain in sales in the long run, but simply that we need to borrow from the future now to make sure we don’t sink into a self-sustaining downward spiral. Anybody who care to look at the past knows that the deeper you go, the longer it takes to get back up to where you were. So you have to “blunt” the dips if you can.