Car industry recovery to take more than a decade-author

HONG KONG, April 7 (Reuters) - Global car and truck sales
will take more than a decade to recover to their 2007 peak as
the sector faces a recession that's likely to be deeper than in
the 1970s and '80s, auto industry author Graeme Maxton said on
Tuesday.

However, car sales are likely to remain strong in China --
which in January surpassed the United States to become the
world's largest auto market -- and bounce back quickly in India,
helped by the introduction of very low cost cars, Hong
Kong-based Maxton said.

"Demand for smaller, cheaper cars should be more robust in
the mature markets, too," Maxton said in a press statement.
"Sales of buses and trucks will also return to more normal
levels sooner, as businesses begin to reinvest. That may not
offer much comfort to most car makers in Europe, Japan and
America over the next decade, however."

He projected that global vehicle sales will drop to 53.8
million in 2010, from a peak of 71.7 million in 2007, and in
2020 will have rebounded to only 67 million.
World Vehicle Registrations, 1990-2020 (millions)
1990 1995 2000 2005 2007 2010 2015 2020
48.0 49.9 57.4 66.1 71.9 53.8 61.0 67.0

Since Western consumers have borrowed too much and are
seeing the value of their homes evaporate, Maxton said many will
need to focus on rebuilding their savings before buying a new
car, even when the economy recovers.

He is co-author of two best-selling books on the auto
industry: "Driving over a cliff?" and "Time for a model change",
which was published in 2005 and predicted current problems in
the car industry.

Baby-boomers, born in the 1950s and 1960s, were the biggest
buyers of new cars in the past but will be especially frugal now
because they will have little time to replenish their pensions,
he said.

Plunging demand amid the global economic downturn, coupled
with credit problems stemming from the global financial crisis
has created turmoil in the auto industry, forcing a string of
big names including General Motors Corp (GM.N) to seek
government aid in an effort to avoid bankruptcy.

Car sales are typically hard hit by economic recession, said
Maxton, noting that U.S. car sales fell 30 percent and took a
decade to recover from the 1973 oil shock. After the next peak
in 1986, they dropped 23 percent and took 13 years to recover.

"In Japan, South America, South Korea and much of Southeast
Asia, sales volumes have been structurally transformed by
recessions," he said. "Japanese and South Korean sales have
never returned to their pre-crisis peaks."
(Reporting by Susan Fenton, Editing by Ken Wills)
(susan.fenton@thomsonreuters.com; +852 2843 6367; Reuters
Messaging: susan.fenton.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net)