by Calculated Risk on 6/02/2010 03:54:00 PM

Based on an estimate from Autodata Corp, light vehicle sales were at a 11.63 million SAAR in May. This is up 18.1% from May 2009 (when sales were very low), and up 3.9% from the April sales rate.

Click on graph for larger image in new window.

This graph shows the historical light vehicle sales (seasonally adjusted annual rate) from the BEA (blue) and an estimate for May (red, light vehicle sales of 11.63 million SAAR from Autodata Corp).

The second graph shows light vehicle sales since the BEA started keeping data in 1967.

Note: dashed line is current month sales rate.

Auto sales have recovered from the low levels of early 2009, but are still at the lowest point of the '90/'91 recession (even with a larger number of registered drivers).

This was slightly above most forecasts of around 11.2 million SAAR.