U.S. Light Vehicle Sales at 16.7 million annual rate in August

Based on a preliminary estimate from AutoData, light vehicle sales were at a 16.7 million SAAR in August.

Note: All other data from the BEA (the BEA will report this month's sales soon).

That is up 1.5% year-over-year from August 2017, and unchanged 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 16.7 million SAAR  from AutoData).

Note that this was an easy comparison to last August, since sales in August 2017 were negatively impacted by hurricanes.  The increase in sales at the end of 2017 was due to buying following the hurricanes.

Sales will probably decline in 2018 after setting new sales records in both 2015 and 2016.

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

Note: dashed line is current estimated sales rate.

This was below the consensus forecast for August.