At the 23rd Automotive Outlook Symposium held in Detroit last week, participants representing manufacturing, banking, consulting and academia offered up predictions for 2016 and 2017. The general consensus: we’re in for a good time, possibly for a long time. The sales party will continue beyond 2017.
According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, which compiled median results from the symposium, the forecast predicts a total of 17.3 million vehicles sold in the United States this year. In 2017, the total number of sales is expected to dip ever so slightly to 17.2 million vehicles.
Other predictions from the symposium forecast minimal increases in the price of oil, from $45.00/barrel in 2016 to $48.92/barrel in 2017, which should further drive the demand for trucks and SUVs. Unemployment is expected to go down by a tenth of a point, while housing starts are forecast to increase.
In 2015, the United States experienced negative industrial production of -1.6 percent. That tide is also expected to turn in 2016 and 2017 toward positive territory.
Overall, the outlook looks fairly peachy, which makes for a rather uninteresting news day.
Subprime lenders rejoice for you are God’s most noblest of men and you truly shall inherit the earth on the backs of posers willing to pay 28.895% interest on USED GERMAN CARS so that they might look cool and snag thots in a neighborhood which despises the ground they sitteth on.
Though their houses may be in shambles – though they may occupy mom’s basement – though they may be renting small spaces through illegal subletting…
…these children can hold their heads high driving through traffic in German luxury where we may not seeith their odometers.
They are those who have truly “arrived” – at least until which point Mercedes changes their styling or interest rates adjust.
I can’t believe nobody gave you props for working thots into this comment.
Nicely done.
No need to change styling. Posers rolling in 328s making you look bad? BMW’s got the solution: change the badge from 328 to 330. Problem solved!
Well it could be a whole lot worse, they could be driving an FCA product.
You must have a huge inferiority complex or are you on drugs?
Maybe they have so much money that they don’t give a care about low gas mileage and demand the most powerful production cars under $100,000?
Maybe they’d rather buy $75,000 muscle cars/Jeeps than spwnd less and get ticking USED German time bombs left behind from the great war as punishment for American exceptionalism?
Heh so these jeep owners have so much money they don’t care about gas milage, but they don’t have enough money to pony up the premium for a Mercedes? The Hellcat might have more power but the S63 accelerates harder and that’s more tangible than horsepower. And the S65 makes more torque than the HELLCAT. Why favor horsepower over TORQUE?
I get the point of desiring a good deal but you have to be a very unique individual to say ‘getting a good deal for my money is important and the HELLCAT is that deal’.
Growing up, I had a neighbor who lived well below his means. He was a principal at a very prominent law firm and he was originally going to get a Volvo but there was a deal on a used Corolla at the Volvo dealer so he bought that instead. That’s an example of someone who cares about money.
You just don’t get it.
Any unit/branch of the Federal Reserve has forecasting skills rivaling one of those Magic 8 Balls.
I’m thinking what they did here was look at the numbers for last year, this year to date, and then drew a line…
+1 Reply hazy, try again
Car sales numbers and everything else is gonna be YUUUGE once Tronald Dump becomes President. All those numbers are wrong, those geeks in the government don’t know what they’re doing. /s
So you contend that they are grossly incompetent, but also that they successfully manipulate the global economy as part of an elaborate generations-long conspiracy?
Hmm. I would think the lizard people could get better help.
the numbers that puzzle me are those of “real residential investment” and “housing starts”. They show a downward trend for the RRI. Wouldn’t there be an increase in RRI if housing starts are predicted to climb? Increased housing starts would mean and increase in residential investment.
Anyone with an explanation?
Thanks.
This is the housing bubble repeated in exactly the same manner except on car loans. It’s amazing that the Fed is completely blind to the issue here. At some point the people who can’t afford these car loans are going to start to default, and the lenders will stop issuing the insane numbers of sub-prime loans, and sales will fall off of a cliff.
Fed is not blind, they are doing this on purpose. It’s all about re inflating the bubble to help the Democrats win in NOV.The housing bubble is already re inflated.
Perhaps they aren’t blind, but they are delusional. They think they can just print more money to generate growth and that the more people borrow beyond their means to consume, the better off the economy will be.
The Fed gave us great data back in 2006 and 2007.
SOME people paid attention to the data, read between the lines, bailed out while they still could, and did alright for themselves.
The number of new cars sold doesn’t really matter. What matters is the number of new car loans successfully repaid.
If the car makers have an 18m SAAR with a default rate of 25%, that isn’t too whoopee.
If they sell 15m with a default rate of <8%, that would be better.
But that would also lead to higher used car prices.
It really boils down to these subprime loans. These days if a person is breathing, they can get a new car loan. NINJA loans are back!