Though Feb still looks to be an outlier, strong performance continued, with the mix shifting slightly to trucks.
This along with lower incentives means that we will likely see another month-over-month increase in retail sales from autos. The data above is units. The retails sales data is revenue.
Its pretty close to suggesting as well that US factories are currently under producing. Factories were set for something like a 10 Million unit year and its looking increasingly likely that we will get at least an 11 Million unit year.
This is the obviously just the first month, but also so far its looking like auto sales will not subtract from GDP in Q2, given the shift into trucks.
Modeled Behavior 
4 comments
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Tuesday ~ May 1st, 2012 at 7:01 pm
rjs
how come bill mcbride has 14.42 million SAAR & you have 11?
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2012/05/us-light-vehicle-sales-at-1442-million.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CalculatedRisk+%28Calculated+Risk%29
Wednesday ~ May 2nd, 2012 at 5:43 am
Karl Smith
Bill has all cars and trucks – I have just cars and trucks made in the US
Wednesday ~ May 2nd, 2012 at 1:55 am
Ben Carper
Are the above numbers adjusted for fewer selling days in April?
http://www.autoblog.com/2012/05/01/april-2012-not-how-it-appears-edition/
Wednesday ~ May 2nd, 2012 at 5:44 am
Karl Smith
Yes?
Is the answer. It is adjusted according the seasonal factors that BEA gives us, which are supposed to account for selling days, but the exact statistical procedure I do not know.