U.S. car culture sputtering
January 7th, 2010 by Jim JustAmerica’s car culture appears to be stalling.
Rigzone reports that U.S. gas consumption has hit a 13 month low. Demand may be responding to higher gas prices: retail gas prices surged last week as the national average pump price rose 4 cents to $2.62 a gallon, 63% higher than a year ago at this time.
Calculated Risk reports on light vehicle sales:
The current level of sales ise still very low, and are still below the lowest point for the ‘90/’91 recession (even with a larger population). On an annual basis, 2009 sales were probably just above the level of 1982 (10.357 million light vehicles).
Due in part to “cash for clunkers”, the United States scrapped 14 million autos while buying only 10 million in 2009, shrinking the country’s car and light duty truck fleet to 246 million from a record high of 250 million.
And the Federal Highway Administration reports that travel on all roads and streets changed by -0.5% (-1.4 billion vehicle miles) for October 2009 (the latest month for which data is available) as compared with October 2008. Cumulative travel for 2009 is up by 0.2% (4.8 billion vehicle miles). What will the final figures for 2009 show when the November and December numbers are in? Reports suggest that bad weather and the holidays had an adverse impact on gasoline demand.