DETROIT (Reuters) - Billionaire investor Wilbur Ross said on Wednesday that the U.S. economy is nowhere near a full recovery and forecast 2010 as a year of transition for the nation's automotive industry sales.
Ross also said he believed that automakers General Motors Co
Ross, chairman of the International Automotive Components Group auto interiors supplier, said he expects U.S. sales to grow by up to 1.5 million units in 2010 from the roughly 10.4 million vehicles that were sold last year.
Those sales would still be below the rate at which old vehicles are consigned to the scrap heap, which Ross believes is in the 12.5 million to 13.2 million unit range. He believes that U.S. sales of 13.5 million is achievable in 2011.
"In my book, 2011 will be the big year for cars, not 2010," Ross said in an interview with Reuters Insider. "I view that as kind of a transition from the depths of where we were to what we hope will be something like the new normal."
A normal rate of annual U.S. auto sales should be in the 13.5 million to 14 million unit range, Ross said on the sidelines of the Automotive News World Congress.
Ross also said the U.S. economy could use a new stimulus program, possibly a more carefully constructed "cash for clunkers" program like the one that boosted U.S. auto sales in July and August.
"A lot of the old stimulus is going to be running out and I don't think the consumer has been rehabilitated yet," he said. "I think that is an '11 or maybe '12 item, not a 2010."
(Reporting by David Bailey, editing by Matthew Lewis)
