SANTA MONICA, Calif.  — The auto industry is getting more interesting to watch as it leads the nation’s economic recovery. Edmunds.com, the premier online resource for automotive information, today announced the launch of a new column, “Drive By Numbers,” which identifies and explains trends thatEdmunds.com analysts are spotting in car transaction records, Web site traffic and other resources at their disposal.

Edmunds.com Senior Analyst Jessica Caldwell’s first entry at http://www.edmunds.com/industry-center/analysis/drive-by-numbers.html contains the following interesting points:

• To put February car sales in perspective, the last time we saw numbers even close to this was in 2007, a time when Barack Obama was a relatively new name for most of us and domestic automakers still had private jets.
• To maintain February’s strong annualized sales rate in March, new car sales will have to equal 1,487,000 units – or a 29 percent sales increase over February.
• In February, advanced drive vehicles (such as hybrids and electric vehicles) made up 3.2 percent of the total new car market share. The Toyota Prius alone makes up 56 percent of all advanced drive market share, leaving the other players to share the rest.
• Have Japanese automakers maintained the loyalty of their customers through all their recent trials and tribulations? In February, 73.9 percent of Japanese trade-ins were exchanged for other Japanese vehicles. This is up from its 68.8 percent low last May.

For more insight and analysis into the state of the automotive industry, please visit Edmunds.com’s Industry Center and gather free automotive data inEdmunds.com’s Data Center.

About Edmunds.com, Inc. 
Edmunds.com, the premier online resource for automotive information, launched in 1995 as the first automotive information Web site. Its acclaimed mobile site,Edmunds.com Android App and five-star Edmunds iPhone and iPad apps make car pricing and other research tools available for car shoppers at dealerships and on the go. Its automotive enthusiast web site, InsideLine.com, is the most-read car publication of its kind. Its highly regarded mobile site and iPhone app features the wireless Web’s most comprehensive gallery of automotive photos and videos. Edmunds.com Inc. is headquartered in Santa Monica, California, and maintains a satellite office in suburban Detroit. Follow Edmunds.com on Twitter@edmunds and fan Edmunds.com on Facebook.