Motor vehicles: Heavy truck sales increase; exports surge almost 74%, local demand contracts 30%

NVDL: What gives? Do some of us live on another planet? I think the 2010 thing explains the increase in heavy truck sales and China probably explains the rise in exports. You've got to wonder how it make sense to build cars in South Africa, and ship them all the way to China, and then transport them (by truck I suppose) to wherever they end up. Just how energy intensive is transporting our transport stuff?

And I was looking at a CD cover at lunchtime today. It has 3 fairly big plastic pieces to hold the CD. Ummmm...why not just a simple paper sleeve? Why do you need 3 pieces of plastic plus two equal sized pieces of paper, to hold a disk that you don't really ever keep in the cover again?

clipped from www.businessday.co.za New car sales (25,304 units) declined by 32,9%, even though August is normally a strong month for new car sales, driven by demand from car rental companies. Sales in the medium truck segments stood at 969 units, a decline of 30,2%. Heavy truck sales however increased by four percent to 2038 units. Some 27,078 new vehicles were exported last month, an improvement of 73,8% compared to the same month last year. "With two thirds of 2008 accounted for, export sales reflected an impressive year-on-year improvement of 61,5%. Vehicle exports for 2008 as a whole were projected to reach 285,000 units," said Naamsa.