Superstorm Sandy is likely to mean 30,000 fewer car sales in
October, resulting in total monthly retail car sales of around
900,000, said car-shopping website Edmunds.com.
Before the storm, Edmunds.com said that it expected new U.S.
auto sales to rise about 11% in October from a year earlier, to
around 1.13 million new cars.
Separately, the firm said that average U.S. per-vehicle
incentives from auto makers decreased 3.3% in October from a month
earlier, even as car sales remain strong.
Edmunds.com said the average true cost of incentives per vehicle
was $2,124, down from $2,197 in September and $2,155 in October
2011.
"Buyers are ignoring the stagnant incentives and are happily
jumping back in to the new car market," says Edmunds.com analyst
Jessica Caldwell. "It's not like they're getting huge deals on new
cars that they couldn't get two or three months ago. They're buying
new cars quite simply because they're ready to."
Honda Motor Co. Ltd. (HMC) saw the biggest month-over-month
decline in average incentive, with a 15.6% drop to $1,420.
Incentive spending at Nissan Motor Co. (NSANY, 7201.TO) fell 9.2%,
at Toyota Motor Corp. (TM, 7203.TO) it was down 6.5% and at General
Motors Co. (GM) it fell 6.4%. Chrysler Group LLC's incentive
spending fell 5.4%.
U.S. car maker Ford Motor Co. (F) reported the only
month-over-month increase in incentives among the car makers
included in the report, with a 2.7% boost to $2,788.
Edmunds.com's monthly incentives report takes into account all
auto makers' various U.S. incentives programs and bases its
calculations on sales volume as well as the proportion of vehicles
for which each type of incentive was used.
Write to Kristin Jones at kristin.jones@dowjones.com
Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires