Auto sales hit 7-year low

The Detriot News reports:

U.S. auto sales tanked to a seven-year low in October as the backlash from the summer sales boom hit with greater force than expected.

Detroit's automakers, who rode employee discounts to record sales in the summer, were the big losers last month as the selling rate for U.S. cars and trucks sank to its lowest point since August 1998.

Their combined share of the U.S. market shrank to a new low of 52.4 percent last month from 57 percent a year ago and 70 percent in 1999 when American consumers were snapping up light trucks and SUVs.