What goes up must come down, even in car-loving America.
- Global demand for cars will decline 3% in 2019, analysts predict.
- There have been at least 38,000 job losses among automakers in the past six months.
- One stark example: Commercial vehicle exports from the UK collapsed by 89% in April.
- The decline in car sales has already wiped 0.2% off global gross domestic product, according to Fitch Ratings.
- The world may have already passed “peak car.”
For the auto business, “the pain is just beginning,” according to the Nomura analyst Masataka Kunugimoto and his team. “We now expect global auto demand to be down 3%,” year on year, in 2019, he told clients recently.
