As so many other things have been, the U.S. auto market has been whipsawed by the coronavirus pandemic. In April, seasonally adjusted U.S. car and light truck sales fell to only 8.7 million. That’s exactly half what sales were only 11 months earlier, and lower even than the nadir of sales during the global financial crisis.
A Bit of a Drop
U.S. car and light truck sales, seasonally adjusted annual rate
Source: U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis
Keep On Light Truckin’
U.S. car and light truck sales, percent of total
Source: U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis
Note: Light trucks include sport utility vehicles.
More interesting is what’s happening right now in Europe and Japan. Paris’s citywide car-sharing service will start deploying the Citroen Ami, a vehicle capable of carrying only two people at a time at the stately pace of 28 miles per hour (45 kilometers per hour), slower than some electric bicycles. With a limited potential for lethality—technically, the Ami is classified as a quadricycle—it can be legally driven by a 14 year-old.