Priora

One thing I should have tried to predict, what with my commanding view of the Merikan economy, is how many U.S. car sales will materialize in 2009.

2007 saw over 16.1 million sold domestically, while last year's totals dropped to 13.2 million. Do either of those two numbers sound staggeringly high to you? Perhaps not. I heard today that the Big Three need 15 million total sales to remain viable, and there's not a whole lot of prognosticators prognosticating anything above last year.

I mean, who's gonna buy those 15 million cars? Huh? Who? The 2.7 million people laid off since the start of this 'recession?' The 500,000 more each passing month? The 10 odd million or so others who think they might be laid off? Me?

My U.S. car sales guess, snatched from the cold smoggy Elk Grovian air, is a total 10.08 million for 2009. I'm as likely to be as close to reality as any Nobel Economic Laureate. This is a level which the autos say is unprofitable, but I still predict they'll hang on because we're only getting better at propping up faltering companies and sectors with billions and billions of borrowed dollars.

Fewer Priora are being sold these days, too, both numerically and as a percentage of total. Prius is the neuter singular form of prior, and the plural form is priora, right? I predict no more than 110,000 Priora will be sold in the U.S. in 2009.

The loss of share of the Prius disturbs me, as it shows we came nowhere close to effecting any real change in our behavior. A quick return to complacency and cheap gas brings an almost 50% sales drop. Just think how many Volts are gonna be sold in 2010. Six hundred and twenty two? Two thousand, perhaps? And this is gonna save GM, a few thousand wealthy white guilty pseudo-environmentalists looking to buy one to add to their car collections? Hooray for the gasoline powered internal combustion engine!