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Is the era of the SUV over?

post #1 of 5
5/2/08 at 12:37pm
Thread Starter 

And do we have high gas prices to thank for it?  According to a NYTimes article today, "Soaring gas prices have turned the steady migration by Americans to smaller cars into a stampede."

 

Last month, one in five vehicles sold in the U.S. was a compact or subcompact car.  Almost a decade ago, when SUVs were at their peak of popularity, only one in every eight vehicles sold was a small car.  Moreover, "fuel-sipping" four-cylinder engines surpassed six-cylinder models in popularity for the first time!  In contrast, sales of pickup trucks and large SUVs have dropped sharply. 

 

This is awesome!!  Maybe those gas prices should STAY up, because it'll continue encouraging people to move onto more fuel efficient/enviro friendly vehicles...


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post #2 of 5
5/2/08 at 12:55pm

That's awesome. I remember reading that in Europe where gas is 2x as expensive as here (maybe not quite that much anymore), that the average car on the road gets 40 mpg - I'd love to see a similar shift here.

 

Or I'll just wait and get my Volt :)

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post #3 of 5
5/2/08 at 1:23pm

I'm sure that gas prices will continue to increase, and it's good to see we've reached a point where more Americans are willing to consider smaller cars.  It's still true that Europe pays about twice what we do for gas, and that their cars get nearly twice the fuel efficiency as the average American car.

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post #4 of 5
6/4/08 at 5:31am

saw on cnn yesterday, that many companies are thinking of stopping the production of SUV's. wow! I didn't see the whole story, just the captions. anyone else see it? please fill in the gaps for me.

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post #5 of 5
6/4/08 at 7:35am

I think it is a great thing that we are switching to smaller cars.  To be honest I had an SUV until a few months ago.  My husband and I both traded in our vehicles for smaller cars.  I am not sure if SUVs are to blame for the high gas prices.  OPEC decides how much oil they are willing to pump so they are the ones that set the prices for the rest of us around the world.

 

The high gas prices are due to a lot of factors.  As many more countries move toward industrialization and production they are needing a greater share on the worlds oil supply i.e. China as an example.  Therefore, demand has gone up on oil.  At the same time those who are drilling for the oil are having to spend more time and money to reach the oil underground.  As we use up our supply we end up having to drill farther down which costs more time and money.  We are also having to search for new reserves.  Better technology is having to be developed as well to compensate for having to drill farther into the earth.  Therefore, supply is going down since it is harder to reach this oil and there is less of it.

 

When demand is high and supply is low we all know prices go up.  Taking the SUVs off the road is a great thing!  However, it isn't going to change what is happening.  Demand will continue to increase (until people start looking more and more toward alternative energy and fuels), and the supply will continue to go down and be more costly.

 

With all the SUVs off the road I will now be able to see over the car in front of me though which will be wonderful!

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