LOS ANGELES – The good times will keeping rolling for the auto industry next year, with higher sales and continued low gasoline prices, the National Automobile Dealers Association’s chief economist predicts, reported Detroit Free Press.

Sales of new vehicles, already on pace to top 16 million for the first time since the mid-2000s, will increase to 16.94 million in 2015. That would be an increase from this year’s expected 16.4 million, the NADA says.

“Rising employment and wages, continued low interest rates and lower gasoline prices all signal an increase in new light-vehicle sales in 2015,” NADA Chief Economist Steven Szakaly said in a statement. The prediction was released ahead of the Los Angeles Auto Show here.

The sales increase is based on a predicated 3.1% increase in the gross domestic product, up from 2.1% this year. The forecast is pretty much rosy all around, with an expected 242,000 new jobs being created a month next year. Both workers’ disposable income and corporate profits will rise.

Best of all for the auto industry, oil prices will stay low. “Lower oil prices, which translate into lower prices at the gas pump for consumers, increases household spending on other goods and services, resulting in higher growth,” Szakaly said in his statement. “If oil and gasoline prices remain low through 2015, we could easily see consumers return in even greater numbers to the light-vehicle market during the second half of 2015.”