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Toyota: U.S. Sales Boom Could End Next Year
America's car sales surge could fizzle at the end of 2014 unless the economy revives enough to create more jobs, says Jim Lentz, CEO of Toyota Motor Corp.'s North American operations.
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America's car sales surge could fizzle at the end of 2014 unless the economy revives enough to create more jobs, says Jim Lentz, CEO of Toyota Motor Corp.'s North American operations.
Car sales in the U.S. slumped to a 30-year low of 10.4 million units in 2009. Lentz tells the Associated Press that the decline in new-car sales meant fewer trade-ins, thus shrinking the country's supply of used cars to its lowest level since the 1980s.
The shortage of used cars boosted their price and made the relative difference in the price of new cars more attractive. That trend will push new-car sales to an expected 15.6 million units this year, a volume close to pre-recession levels.
It's also replenishing used-car inventories and driving down the price of second-hand cars. As the price gap between new and used cars widens again, new-car sales growth with slow, Lentz predicts. He figures that equilibrium point is about 12 months away.
But some analysts disagree. One tells AP that the U.S. market is still at least three years away from offsetting four years of below-normal sales.
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