by Calculated Risk on 10/03/2017 03:08:00 PM

Based on a preliminary estimate from WardsAuto (ex-Porsche and Hyundai), light vehicle sales were at a 18.4 million SAAR in September.

That is up 4% from September 2016, and up 14.8% from last month.


Click on graph for larger image.

This graph shows the historical light vehicle sales from the BEA (blue) and an estimate for August (red, light vehicle sales of 18.4 million SAAR mostly from WardsAuto).

This was well above the consensus forecast of 16.7 million for September (Note: Hurricane Harvey pushed down sales at the end of August - and this was part of the bounce back).

Still, after two consecutive years of record sales, vehicle sales will be down in 2017.

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

Note: dashed line is current estimated sales rate.