"Carmageddon" - Not Yet, But Hot Air Hisses out of Auto Bubble

Year-to-date sales, at 5.49 million vehicles, are now down 2.4%. At this rate, this will pan out to be the dreaded "car recession."

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Automakers had shelled out $3,465 in incentives per new vehicle sold, on average, according to TrueCar estimates. A record for the month of April. It beat the prior record of $3,393, set in April 2009. It amounts to about 10% of suggested retail price, similar to March. The last period when incentive spending was at this level of MSRP was in 2009 as the industry and sales were collapsing.

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bloated inventories are [also] hounding the automakers. According to WardsAuto.com, there were over 4 million new vehicles sitting on dealer lots and increasingly on rented parking lots at zombie retail malls. April was the fourth month in a row with dealer inventories above 4 million. The last time this happened was in 2004!