Main reasons why the U.S. car sales have peaked

Main reasons why the U.S. car sales have peaked: We’ve been a bit worried about the car market after Ford Motor announced that it plans to cut 10 percent of its salaried workers. General Motors didn’t show better results, it reported a 4.7 percent sales drop on April, just like Fiat Chrysler who might get sued for using illegal software which violate the U.S. clean-air rules. We’ve been trying to understand the reasons for the slump, and here’s what we got:

Demand has peaked. Last year, there was a record vehicle sales volume of 17.55 million. But the National Automobile Dealers Association forecasts that will slide to 17.1 million in 2017, which still is on the high side historically. And that will come despite a barrage of discounts -- about about $3,900 per vehicle, or around 10 percent of the suggested retail price. That's the biggest discount level since the recession.

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