Under the Hood: June 2011 Edition

It's been a while since I've looked at auto sales.  As should be expected for a number of reasons - a weak economy, the end of housing-bubble induced wealth effect, and perhaps even a slight trend away from driving - sales haven't recovered to their pre-recession levels.  The spike caused by the Cash for Clunkers program is pretty obvious.  But the falloff in the first months after the program ended was less than I expected.

The data for registration lags by over a year, so it's too soon to tell if the downtick in registered vehicles is actually a trend.  But this article from a few months ago suggests that the number of cars on the road has continued to decline.