GM extended summer shutdown at certain plants as it tries to shrink bloated inventories in a market it believes isn't as strong as last year.

General Motors, which has been scaling back production since last fall as inventories of unsold vehicles have grown, revised its sales forecast for 2017 downward, with senior executives now saying that U.S. sales will drop into the “low 17 million” range.

With the consensus of the auto industry now suggesting a downturn is taking hold, another key forecasting service also announced it was cutting its outlook for 2017. LMC trimmed its full-year 2017 forecast for new vehicle sales for the third consecutive month, pegging it at 17.1 million units from its previous forecast of 17.2 million.

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“As the U.S. auto market enters the fourth month in a row of a sub-17 million unit selling rate, nerves are being tested,” Jeff Schuster, senior vice president of forecasting at LMC Automotive, said in a release. “It will be challenging in the second half of the year to keep pace with 2016 … but a year still expected above 17 million units should not be considered a poor performance.” (more…)