More pain in autos for October

Autoblog's October "By the Numbers" survey is out, and the auto industry in the U.S. slid deeper into recession last month, with all makers except Audi and Mini showing year-over-year losses. GM was the biggest loser, down 45% from October 2007, and every GM brand except Saab was down at least 40%; HUMMER was down more than 60%, and Cadillac, GMC and Saturn were down over 50%. In September, GM was one of the better performers, due to its "Employee Pricing for Everyone" program, but it was discontinued at the end of that month. In addition, GMAC withdrew financing for all but the very best credit risks, which left GM's dealers with far fewer options for customer financing.

Of the major companies, Chrysler was down almost 35%, Ford fell over 30%, Nissan was down 33%, Honda was down over 25% and Toyota was down 23% (even with its annoying "Saved by Zero" ad campaign.) Only BMW was able to stay nearly even with last year, with a 5% year-over-year decline, and that was largely due to a big increase in production capacity and sales for Mini. In total, industry sales dropped 32.3% to approximately 821,000 vehicles (vs. 1.2 million in October 2007,) the lowest monthly count since February 1993, and adjusted for population growth, the worst monthly total since World War II.