How did Detroit get in such bad shape?

Add comment December 15th, 2008

We all know 2008 hasn’t been great for business, but as I read about how much money General Motors and Chrysler are losing each month I wondered how the company’s could be doing so poorly so suddenly.

Then I got a look at the number of new and used cars registered after purchase locally in October.

The data comes from the Illinois Secretary of State and is perhaps the best way to track new and used car sales activity. Each time a car is sold, you have to register that sale and that’s what the state tracks.

I just keep track of Boone, Ogle, Stephenson and Winnebago counties and for most of the year new and used sales, while no where near the 2006 record levels, was at least close to and sometimes better than 2007 figures.

Not in October. In total, there were 4,885 vehicles registered after purchase in the Rock River Valley. That was a nearly 18 percent drop from the 5,940 registered in September. The major decline was in new vehicles sold. There were just 629 new vehicle registrations in October. I have data back to the beginning of 2005 and the worst month for new vehicles prior to October was January 2005 when 929 new vehicles were registered.

I sent a message to the state employee saying in essence, ‘wow, are these bad’ and he replied that November will be worse.