Given that bankers, manufacturers, retailers, etc. etc. etc. across the planet got blindsided by the world economic crisis and are losing money and/or going bankrupt in flocks, it's nice to hear from someone who apparently fully anticipated the crisis, and can at least pin blame at the auto companies on corruption and inept management. We're all angry at getting clobbered by this situation, but Dan's comment seems to only be uninformed lashing out.
Having said that, it's common to observe a sea of new cars at assembly plants or at ports-of-entry. Some of those images are everyday end-of-line storage. It's considered "proper" for the auto industry in the US to have a 60 day supply of cars in stock. In a reasonable year, that's 2.5 MILLION cars and light trucks in temporary storage waiting for sale, and that's considered NORMAL.
But it's not a reasonable year. In the US, the AVERAGE car sales are down 30%+ from a year ago. This includes all car manufacturers and importers, not just the "US" companies (whatever that means) that some people love to trash. Car sales for 2009 are expected to be around 10.5 million units, down from 13.2 million in 2008, and 16.1 million in 2007. So from 2008 it's a 21% drop and from 2007, a 35% drop in sales.
ALL of the car makers have way too much production capacity for the instantaneous new reality of 10.5 million units. Any big company that is capitalized to operate on sales of "X", and in three months find they must must operate at X-30%, WILL take a bath. Even high-flying Toyota is now reporting losses in the billions of dollars.
This monstrous drop in sales is due to economic weakness, which was initiated by the banking/credit crisis. This crisis developed in just a few weeks. It's still difficult to get credit to buy cars, or to get loans to maintain cash flow, because your business model has been turned upside down.
The ONLY thing that will fix this problem is for people to buy cars, a LOT of them, in the next few months. Unfortunately, the economic mess has rippled out through the economy, and people are saving much more, rather than spending. Businesses are doing the same, where they can.
For the most part, I'd guess that people/businesses don't take loans to buy Segs. On the other hand, Segs aren't critical to continued operation of homes and most businesses. I'd be surprised if the economic situation did not impact Segway too.
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