Peak Auto: America's Love Affair

[CokeSnortingTory]

This is one of those creeping background trends that tends to go unnoticed, but I think tells us where we are really going:

Inquiring minds note that there are 4 Million Fewer Cars on the Road. It's a sign America's Love Affair with the Automobile May Be Coming to an End.

The U.S. fleet has apparently peaked and started to decline. In 2009, the 14 million cars scrapped exceeded the 10 million new cars sold, shrinking the U.S. fleet by 4 million, or nearly 2 percent in one year. While this is widely associated with the recession, it is in fact caused by several converging forces.

Future U.S. fleet size will be determined by the relationship between two trends: new car sales and cars scrapped. Cars scrapped exceeded new car sales in 2009 for the first time since World War II, shrinking the U.S. vehicle fleet from the all-time high of 250 million to 246 million.

Ultimately it tells us that the economic contraction we are in is secular rather than cyclical - we are now past the end of the post-war growth model.

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2010/01/peak-autos-americas-love-affair-with.html