We’re not breaking any news here when we tell you that 2009 was just about the worst year in the modern history of selling cars. Aside from Ford climbing out of the ashes and starting to make some forward progress, everyone else was in the hurt locker. GM and Chrysler went boobs up with one ending up in the loving arms of the US Government and the other is now controlled by the Italians. At least you can still go to your neighborhood Pontiac dealership and buy a G8 GXP. Oh wait…
We found an interesting piece documenting just how bad it was in 2009 for car companies in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. One of the most interesting stats in the story regards the Honda Insight hybrid. The can was panned all over the place when introduced earlier this year, but Honda was still looking to sell 90,000 of them this year. The it was 60,000, now it will be somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000. That’s a huge fail for a company like Honda which, over the last few decades, has been able to sell all its wares with relative ease.
The good news is that 2010 seemingly cannot be worse. Well, theoretically it can be, but we sure as hell hope not.
