"A [not so] long time ago in an automotive industry [not]
far, far away," John Murphy, Research Analyst for Merrill
Lynch delivered his popular annual "Car Wars"
presentation in Detroit on May 10th. This was the
26th year of the report (which began in 1991), which is
not quite as old as the 39-year old Star Wars franchise that dates
back to 1977. But, for automotive geeks, both remain very
interesting.
Report Summary
The Car Wars report included Murphy's forecast for U.S.
automotive industry sales, and of course the information regarding
the automotive OEMs current product plans and replacement rates for
the 2017-2020 period, which portion gives the report its signature
name. On the market forecast, the headline of course was the
prediction of 20 million total units sold by 2018 in the U.S.
market, which would be a significant uptick from the current sales
rate of between 17 and 18 million units. Garnering less attention
was Murphy's prediction of a more "normal"
