Despite an August push on the retail end by GM to pare excess stocks, the rest of the industry for the most part did not follow suit and dealer inventory heading into September remains an estimated 15% to 20% too high for current demand.
The report puts the seasonally adjusted annual rate of sales for August at 16.5 million units, below the 17.1 million SAAR from same-month 2016 and 16.7 million in the prior month.