Jonathan Smoke speaks to CBT News' Jim Fitzpatrick
Industry predictions for the Balance of 2017
Thursday September 14, 2017
Article Highlights
- "There was disappointment with August numbers but a lot of asterisks," Smoke said.
- Disruption in the market due to Hurricane Harvey impacted the predicted year-on-year growth expected in August and the SAAR came in at 16.0 as opposed to the predicted 16.6 million and .3 or .4 of that was directly related to the market disruption cause by Hurricane Harvey.
- According to Smoke, "Starting in September and moving through the end of the the year, we will see more than what we lost coming back into the market."
As the auto industry continues to move forward, some are curious as to what the rest of 2017 will look like considering the recent hurricanes. They’ve already impacted the SAAR for August, gas prices nationally, and the loss of more than 500,000 vehicles. In an interview with Jim Fitzpatrick, CBT News, Jonathan Smoke, chief economist with Cox Automotive, explains why he predicts the SAAR will end up at 17.1 this month.