If Winter Storm Elliott is as bad as predicted, it will create another headwind to December deliveries on top of inventory-related issues, fear of recession and rising prices and interest rates. Conversely, because the bad weather is hitting broad swaths of the U.S. at a time when most vehicle assembly plants will be closed anyway for the holiday season, production losses should be minimal and end-of-month inventory will not significantly suffer because of it.
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This graph shows actual sales from the BEA (Blue), and Wards forecast for December (Red).
The Wards forecast of 13.0 million SAAR, would be down 8% from last month, but up 2% from a year ago (sales weakened in the second half of 2021, due to supply chain issues).