by Calculated Risk on 11/03/2009 04:00:00 PM

Click on graph for larger image in new window.

This graph shows the historical light vehicle sales (seasonally adjusted annual rate) from the BEA (blue) and an estimate for October (red, light vehicle sales of 10.46 million SAAR from AutoData Corp).

The second graph shows light vehicle sales since the BEA started keeping data in 1967.

Obviously sales were boosted significantly by the "Cash-for-clunkers" program in August and some in July.

This was the first month over a 10 million sales rate (SAAR) - excluding July and August - since December 2008. Still very low ...