How Have Sales Patterns Changed Over 17 Years for Domestic Vehicles Versus Imports?

Using a fairly small table of data (17 rows and 8 columns) can still yield big insights.

In this analysis based on the U.S. Statistical Abstract and baselined to the year 1990, we examined pre-summarized data showing total sales from 1990 to 2006 for domestic and import vehicles. Truck sales grew rapidly, first for the domestic makers and then for the imports (starting in 1996). Cars, on the other hand, did not experience much growth at all. And what may seem surprising at first is that imports fell in the mid 1990's. A futher investigation (and shown in another visualization in this analysis' associated packaged workbook available for download) shows that the fall in import sales was matched by significant increases in the average expenditure per car (in essence, increases in price).

Tags: Transportation, Economics