Analysts are lowering estimates for 2017 vehicle sales after five months of industrywide deliveries declining from a year earlier. Among the reasons: automakers are showing more restraint on discounts than expected and gridlock in Washington reduces the likelihood of a second-half surge. Analysts reduced their full-year projections this spring, dialing the consensus back to 17.2 million light vehicles. The industry set a record with 17.55 million cars and light trucks sold last year, aided by a jump in shipments to rental-car companies and other fleet buyers.
The auto industry has been a fixation for President Donald Trump, who's said carmakers will build vehicles in the U.S. again because of him. While he's promised the industry less regulation and lower taxes, the struggle the Republican-led White House and Congress have had with health-care reform has cast doubt on the Trump administration's ability to follow through on measures that would boost car demand. Anticipation for tax cuts, infrastructure spending and other policies that would give automakers a lift contributed to analysts raising their sales estimates to 17.4 million as of the end of January, from an average of 17.2 million in November. That optimism has been dashed in part by how consumed Washington has been with investigations into Russia's efforts to interfere in the presidential election.
Throw in the flood of used cars hitting the market from the boom in lease business three years ago, as well as questions about the pace of interest-rate increases, and it's all leaving automakers a bit antsy.
