Car stories.

This is from Atrios. I like it so I'm gonna put it up here.


Story one:

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Sales tumbled at General Motors and Ford last month as record high gas prices and the automakers' own summer promotions finally took their toll.

Tough comparisons with strong results a year ago were also a factor, industry executives said.

GM, the world's biggest automaker, said U.S. sales overall sank 24 percent to 344,797 vehicles in September.

Sales of light trucks, which include pickups, sport/utility vehicles and vans, plummeted even more, off 30 percent from a year earlier, while car sales declined 14.5 percent.

Ford, the nation's No. 2 automaker, said September sales overall sank 19 percent to 228,157 vehicles.

Ford's sales of light trucks fell even more sharply, sinking 27 percent to 155,167.

Story two:

Toyota Motor Corp. said Monday that its U.S. vehicle sales jumped 10.3 percent in September as climbing car sales offset a slight decline in trucks.

The Japanese automaker - which sells car and trucks under the Toyota, Lexus and Scion brands - sold 178,417 vehicles during the month, up from 161,793 last September. Car sales jumped 22.2 percent to 107,551 vehicles, more than making up for a 3.9 percent decline in truck sales to 70,866 units.


( Mike: Oh, and it must be because Japanese labor is so much cheaper, right? So we gotta bust the unions to compete. Couldn't possibly be that they produce 30% more efficient cars?)