Another strong month for car sales

Among the standouts for April: GM up 26 percent, Ford up 16 percent, Nissan 12.2 percent. Toyota was up only 1.3 percent. Much of the strength has come from sales of smaller, fuel efficient vehicles (the relatively new Chevy Cruze had its best sales month ever). Analysts expect April U.S. sales to reach an annual rate of more than 13 million vehicles, a significant improvement over the dark days of the recession. But there's still concern that supply shortages resulting from the Japanese earthquake could spell trouble in the next few months. And high gas prices certainly don't help the overall industry. (Bloomberg, LAT)