U.S. carmakers score in August; Japanese carmakers still in slump

Pretty interesting month for auto sales:

--GM up 18 percent
--Ford up 11.2 percent
--Chrysler up 30.6 percent
--Toyota down 12.7 percent
--Honda down 24.2 percent

Frankly, I think it's miraculous that sales held up as well as they did (stock market plunge, Washington follies over debt ceiling, weak housing sales, etc.) J.D. Power analyst Jeff Schuster offers some perspective (via the NYT)

August began with uncertainty caused by the debt-ceiling debate in Washington, and ended with much of the East Coast focused more on the weather than on buying a new car. In addition, some shoppers probably stayed on the sidelines in the hope of getting a good deal during the upcoming holiday weekend, said Jeff Schuster, executive director of global forecasting at J. D. Power and Associates. "We did see things get a little bit weaker as we got into the second half of the month," Mr. Schuster said. "Many buyers are still conditioned to the strong Labor Day sales, so we could have seen some buyers pull back their purchase decisions waiting for some deals."

GM estimated the annualized sales pace was 12.5 million cars and trucks, compared with 11.5 million vehicles a year earlier. Prior to the recession, car sales were running close to 17 million.