With regard to the dire straits the automobile industry is in, there is no overlooking the statement by equity analyst Efraim Levy, of Standard & Poor's: "We are in an automotive depression," full-blown!

The latest blow to the already much-existent snag in the auto industry has come in the form of February reports about auto sales in the US - the dismal figures indicated a 41 percent plunge, with the sales practically all of the country's six leading automakers dropping at least 10 percent from the previous year figures.

The company-specific plunging sales figures indicated a 53 percent drop for GM; 48 percent for Ford; 44 percent for Chrysler; 40 percent for Toyota; 38 percent for Honda; and 37 percent for Nissan.

Data inputs from sales tracker Autodata indicate that the industry-wide sales of cars and light trucks have hit the lowest seasonally-adjusted annual rates since December 1981 - with the last month figures standing at 9.1 million vehicles, as against 15.4 million a year back.

Ford Motor's senior US economist Emily Kolinski Morris noted that while industry-wide fleet sales took a turn for the better than January, sales to consumers drastically dropped again in February. Commenting on the dreary situation, Morris said: "It implies we have not reached the bottom, and pushes that bottom out to some point yet to be determined!"