Question:
Are the auto sales figures $$ volume or unit volume?
We went looking for a replacement vehicle recently (my wife’s minivan finally gave up the ghost) and were considering a new vehicle, until we saw the prices. Granted, it has been about 6 years since we were last “in the market”, but an “average” new vehicle is now close to $30,000, and there’s just no way we can afford that. We ended up buying a used vehicle with a good reputation, with 98k miles on it, and paid a lot more even for that than I had hoped...
At any rate, if much of the sales ($$) volume is from sales of expensive vehicles that the average American cannot afford, the “improvement” in auto sales is an illusion to the average person.
This data from the St. Louis Fed is in units:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/ALTSALES
Using dollars to report vehicle sales would have all kinds of price/mix issues which would make the numbers pretty useless IMHO.