The America SUV Myth

Well, lacking any other stimulus, the price of gas will (once again) drive consumer choices.

I met a guy just last week who makes his living buying and reselling vehicles. He was talking about how much the prices are declining in the SUV market. He is able to buy them at very low prices, yet even at lower prices he is having much difficulty reselling them. He said that he is shifting his inventory to fuel effiecient cars in order to stay afloat. Thats the reality.

As far as the myth, how many of you have noticed the trend in the media to slander the SUV? How many times have you seen the headline which reads "Woman ran down by SUV" or "SUV claims lives of pedestrians"? When was the last time you saw a headiline reading "Woman ran down by Volkswagon Bug" or Volkswagon Bug claims lives of pedestrians"? The term SUV seems to be used very selectively in the media and the aim is quite clear.

There is most definitely a campaign within the media to demonize certain methods of transportation. To some extent, I agree with the end, but I do not agree with the means.

Originally posted by EndOfFile
The US is made up of a variety of environments unlike many countries in Europe. *snip* My town is a farming community where trucks are a must and going to town means driving a half hour or longer.*snip* In the snow belt near the great lakes the winter weather can get pretty rough so you are better off driving some kind of all wheel drive or four wheel drive vehicle other wise you tend to get stuck. The same goes for the various mountainous regions.

i think you really need to do some fact finding yourself. do you think a normal car can't drive for longer than 10 minutes without exploding or what. i rarely drive less than half an hour but i still use a car. european climates range from tundra to subtropical and there are plenty of mountainous regions in between. you can buy lots of all wheel drive cars, you don't need a truck.

With all that being said, let's list the top 10 vehicles sold in the US for years, 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007. Notice that SUVs are not the top vehicles sold in the US. In fact SUVs only show up in tenth place for the years of 2005 and 2007.


2004:

Car First-half 2004 sales Base price
• Ford F-Series 432,969 $19,920
• Chevrolet Silverado 322,907 $19,485
• Dodge Ram pickup 223,609 $20,365
• Ford Explorer 168,059 $23,690

2005:

1. Ford F-Series (includes F-150, F-250 Super Duty and F-350 Super Duty) — 901,463
2. Chevrolet Silverado (includes 1500, 1500 Classic, 1500 SS, 1500 SS Classic, 1500HD, 1500HD Classic, 2500HD, 2500HD Classic, 3500, 3500 Classic) — 705,891
4. Dodge Ram (includes 1500, 1500 SRT-10, 2500 and 3500) — 400,453
10. Chevrolet TrailBlazer and TrailBlazer EXT — 244,150

2006:

1. Ford F-Series (includes F-150, F-250 Super Duty and F-350 Super Duty) — 796,039
2. Chevrolet Silverado (includes 1500, 1500 Classic, 1500 SS Classic, 1500HD Classic, 2500HD, 2500HD Classic, 3500HD, 3500 Classic — 636,069
4. Dodge Ram (includes 1500, 2500 and 3500) — 364,177

2007:

1. Ford F-150 (588,952 models) - DOWN 12.5% from last year
2. Chevrolet Silverado (526,575) - DOWN 2.4%
9. Dodge Ram (214,569) - DOWN 29.3%

i don't really care what you call it, if you don't need to drive over rough terrain routinely, it's an suv. if you do need it, 4x4 is great but driving in rough terrain needs torque at low speeds, you don't actually need the 4.6 V8 pumping out 248hp, which would be the mid range f-series, consistently the top seller, are you going to tell me there are that many people in the US that constantly need to drive off road?

another good indicator of these "trucks" SUV status is the fact that so many come with automatic transmissions, i've driven lots of 4x4s on rough terrain, you need to use the gears, end of story. if you can drive through it in auto, it's not rough enough to need the 4x4.

justify it how you like, but as far as i'm concerned, you haven't convinced me, i still believe to many americans drive gas guzzling suv's.

EDIT: and by the way, as far as i'm concerned, way to many europeans drive gas guzzling SUVs, but they're far less popular over here.

[edit on 9-6-2008 by pieman]