Here we go again: SUVs lead U.S. auto sales growth

[charlie]

Just 3 years after flirtation with $4 gasoline, our lust for Big Iron is back.

If U.S. consumers are in the midst of a green revolution, the news hasn't reached car buyers.

With the end of the recession, bigger vehicles have made a comeback, sales figures show, and it has come at the expense of smaller, more-efficient cars.

Leading the growth were sales of midsize sport-utility vehicles, which jumped 41 percent through the first 11 months of the year, led by vehicles such as the Jeep Grand Cherokee and the Honda Pilot, each of which get about 18 miles per gallon.

Sales of small cars, by contrast, remained flat despite otherwise surging demand for automobiles. Sales of the Toyota Corolla and the Honda Civic declined, and even the fuel-sipping Toyota Prius, the hybrid darling of the eco-conscious, dropped 1.7 percent...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/29/AR2010122904445.html

[physioex]

1. Meehhhh....

Let em learn the hard way when gasoline reaches $5/gal.

[michreject]

4. Have no choice but to pay it

My truck only gets 10 mpg. I'll just sigh and pay it. No other choice.

At least I'm retired and don't have to go back and forth to work. The round trip was 100 miles. It sucked.

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

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[Fumesucker]

6. A compact car with a lightweight folding 4' x 8' trailer behind it can carry as much as a pickup..

..Without a trailer..

If a motorcycle can tow a car, then much more than you might think is possible with even a small car..

A tow vehicle that can get through the traffic jam to move the stuck vehicle causing the jam in the first place..

http://thekneeslider.com/archives/2005/08/24/goldwing-retriever/





Oh, and welcome to DU..

:hi:

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

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[Fumesucker]

8. The great majority of pickups drive around empty or nearly so virtually all the time..

I live smack dab in the middle of East Redneckistan and even here 90+% of the pickups are empty or carrying only what you could fit in a small car 90+% of the time. As someone whose home has actual wheels on it I notice such things.

Of course the motorcycle is stressed, but it's doing a niche job that no other vehicle at the moment can accomplish.

Most average people who do not use a pickup for work carry loads only a very small percentage of the time.

My full time home when I bought it, I pull it no problem with a standard half ton van.

[michreject]

9. Mine is 11,000 pounds

A 32' double slider.

It's why I'm stuck with a 10 mpg truck. I get 6 mpg with the trailer attached.

[Fumesucker]

11. Yep, you have need of a truck..

And I bet you know that most people who have trucks don't have a real need for them.

The number of people capable of safely pulling a trailer the size of yours isn't all that high in the general population of drivers out there these days.

Is yours a fifth wheel? I think I'd want a fifth wheel at 11K lbs, mine's a 30' pull behind but it's a lot closer to 5K than 11K..

[michreject]

15. Not a 5th wheel

I didn't want to use up the storage space that my bed provided. I have a cap. As you know, storage is a premium.

[Kolesar]

37. The Hensley Arrow Hitch--Guaranteed Trailer Sway Elimination!

I found this product while looking for articles on towing. We are seriously considering buying an RV ,perhaps a trailer. http://www.hensleymfg.com/

Guaranteed Trailer Sway Elimination!
Hensley Mfg., makers of the famous Hensley Arrow®, also know as the Arrow® or the Hensley® the ONLY trailer hitch guaranteed to totally eliminate trailer sway. Only Hensley can make that statement!

[Ezlivin]

40. Or try the PullRite

It mounts under your vehicle in such a fashion as to move the pivot point to the rear axle, allowing a tag-along to be towed as if it were a fifth-wheel.

[Kolesar]

10. High ground clearance (in a pickup) makes sense for people who farm

Farm roads get beat up and rutted. You can drive a pickup truck through a field of crops, too.

However, you point out that those drivers are buying "image". Urban Cowboy, more or less.

[Fumesucker]

13. About two percent of Americans live on farms..

And one percent are actual farmers.

http://www.epa.gov/oecaagct/ag101/demographics.html

Urban Cowboy, yep that's it..

[blondeatlast]

36. My grandpa was a farmer. He'd split a gut seeing the spit-polished, overly-chromed

pickups that are like weeds in my neck o' the woods.

[Name removed]

16. Deleted message

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[marmar]

17. "The great majority of pickups drive around empty or nearly so virtually all the time"

Yep. Same with all those single-commuter SUVs. A planet-killing mess.

[Kalyke]

24. Nice if you're not a female driving to work.

Motorcycle helmets aren't conducive to professional hair and clothing for working women, particularly those who also have to drop off children at school on their way into the office.

[Fumesucker]

27. Umm.. That's a tow vehicle designed to slip through traffic..

I didn't suggest it as a replacement for an SUV, just pointing out that for those very occasional times when the average person has to carry something bigger than you can fit in a car, a reasonable sized trailer behind a small car will do the job in the vast majority of cases and then can be put away until carrying capacity is needed again. Trucking around with all that carrying capacity all the time requires a sacrifice in fuel efficiency, parking space, insurance, nimbleness in traffic and all the other disadvantages of an SUV.

Most people don't wear motorcycle helmets even in very small cars.

You really don't need a full on SUV to keep your hair and clothing nice, there are plenty of professional people who drive something like a Prius.

[Kalyke]

39. And I should have been more clear.

I don't drive an SUV - I drive a five-speed car that, because it is a manual transmission, gets great gas mileage.

That said - I do see threads on DU that support that everyone drive a motorized bicycle of some sort instead of using larger cars or trucks. My point is that some of us can't drive those types of vehicles for a variety of reasons.

Which leads me to another question, actually. In countries where bicycling to work is the norm, do workplaces have showers? It would seem that any bike ride in a warmer climate would result in mussed hair, sweaty bodies and sometimes foul odors.

[Fumesucker]

3. It took less than three months after $4.00 gasoline for the F150 to regain most popular vehicle..

Americans have the memory capacity and attention span of ADD squirrels on crack..

I watched a family member buy a Tahoe not long ago, knowing that saying anything was worse than useless, and just kept thinking "$4.00 gasoline and it's going to cost you over $100 just to fill up the tank to cruise around the block.".

[charlie]

12. That's my neighborhood

Lower middle class, strictly suburban, and lousy with F150s and the like. Few of them are professionals; the beds are always empty and the bodies spit shined.

It'll be an interesting moment for them when monthly fillups exceed their monthly payments.

If they want to be cowboys, they should get fucking hats. It's cheaper.

[customerserviceguy]

5. When gasoline plunged back down

to about $1.50 a gallon in NJ, this was inevitable. About half or more of all vehicles around here are SUV's, the suburbanites love them. And they're not going to whine when gas hits $5 a gallon, many around me have kept afloat quite nicely during the Great Recession.

[TheCowsCameHome]

14. $4+ a gallon gasoline will take care of that.

Again.

[lonestarnot]

18. Woopsie.

[rhett o rick]

19. SUV's should be called ROV's, Roll Over Vehicles. nm

[Spyderama]

20. Americans Never Learn

The SUV Madness has to stop!

<http://www.e-tabitha.com/>

[fascisthunter]

21. status symbols

most of them have no more than one person in it at one time. It's space is rarely used, so yes, they are status symbols for the most part.

[FLPanhandle]

22. Can't everyone see the high gas prices on the immediate horizon?

Now's the time to trade in the gas guzzlers if you don't need them.

[pipi_k]

23. Gotta have 'em here too....

My road from the end of my driveway a few winters ago

[FLPanhandle]

26. That is so cool.

I have an SUV too but only use it when towing the boat or hauling the family & dogs camping. Sometimes nothing else will do.

[pipi_k]

33. I know..sometimes people in the "city"...

think someone who's driving one is just a city-dwelling jerk who likes to flaunt his big-ass SUV, and they act accordingly.

Which is to say, rather nasty. Without knowing the whole story.


If I lived in the city, I'd gladly be driving a Mini Cooper or something... :7

[Hello_Kitty]

41. Well here in Greater Phoenix that describes most of them.

How many blinged-out Cadillac Escalade owners do you think take them off road?

[pipi_k]

42. Greater Phoenix...

probably not that many.


I do know some Escalade owners around here who do, though...


they have more money than they know what to do with. I've been trying to get them to adopt me for years...

:7

[boppers]

38. Considered a Subaru?

I drive in similar conditions for much of the year, and was looking into a "snow car" that could handle the muck better than a behemoth...

[Shandris]

25. What pisses me off about the gas guzzlers SO FUCKING MUCH...

...is that I am subsidizing their cost with my own gas prices; they create more demand, which raises prices, which I HAVE TO FUCKING PAY.

The cost of gas should be on a sliding scale based on the usage of your vehicle. Don't make me pay for your fucking oversized piece of shit meant for an offroad excursion, the closest to which you will ever see being a small pothole in the turn-in to Neimann Marcus. :mad:

[taterguy]

28. You wouldn't have to FUCKING PAY those gas prices if you'd get off your lazy ass and get a bike

:hide:

Damnit, 364 days ago I resolved not to post things like that on DU. I hate breaking a New Year's Resolution on the last FUCKING day of the year.

[Hello_Kitty]

45. I'm hopeless on a bike. I would get myself killed trying to commute on one.

But unemployment has taken care of my need to commute. Last time I filled my tank was 2 months ago. :)

[Better Believe It]

29. So what? I like SUV's.

[adigal]

31. So do I....but they are bad for the environment

when their gas mileage is low and that is bad for you in the long run.

[The Backlash Cometh]

30. Look, anytime a family of four gets T-boned while riding in a Focus, it's big news.

The only real answer is to make it viable to trade in the gas guzzlers for SUVs which are more gas efficient.

[pipi_k]

34. Speaking of being T-boned...

A couple of weeks ago one of my stepdaughters got t-boned in her little compact car (by a truck) and was exceedingly lucky not to be injured worse than she was...not to mention that she is pregnant.

The car was totalled, and now she's scared to get another small car. She wants a big pickup despite the fact that she lives in a small city and doesn't really need a pickup for its usual functions.

[Fumesucker]

35. Fuel mileage is ultimately determined by wind drag and weight..

The more wind drag and the more weight the lower the mileage all else being equal.

If you want more efficient SUVs they have to be smaller and lighter with a given technology to get better fuel mileage.

[old mark]

32. Our SUV - an old Hyundai Santa Fe-gets around 22 MPG, which is better than most,

I believe...It's a great car, or whatever.

mark

[cbdo2007]

43. We love our Toyota Rav4.

It's the perfect vehicle for our growing family.

[quiller4]

44. When you drive as little as we do, gas prices impact car buying decisions less

We are seniors. We drive less than a combined 6,500 miles per year on our two vehicles. One of them is an F 150. It is 15 years old, fully paid for and runs well. It remains the perfect vehicle for spouse's trips to home improvement stores. We gas up the truck every other month. I go through 1 and one-half tanks in the van a month.

Somewhere down the line we will get down to one vehicle and a smaller SUV will probably be our choice to replace both van and truck. It won't get the mileage of a really small car but it will better meet our needs. We would choose differently if we were still working and commuting. Instead we haul construction materials around as Habitat volunteers and often have a dog along for the ride.