Why car biz is struggling

Good chart from Calculated Risk shows light vehicle sales going back to January 1967. The blue bars indicate recession years. Note the red spike at the far right showing a pick-up from the cash for clunkers program. Since then, however, sales have been anemic. February's numbers translate to an adjusted annualized sales rate of 10.4 million vehicles. That's up from February, 2009, when very few of us were thinking about a new car, but down from January's 10.7 million pace - and far, far below what a consumer-led recovery is supposed to look like.