As Gas Costs Soar, Buyers Flock to Small Cars

Source: NYT

DETROIT — Soaring gas prices have turned the steady migration by Americans to smaller cars into a stampede. In what industry analysts are calling a first, about one in five vehicles sold in the United States was a compact or subcompact car during April, based on monthly sales data released Thursday. Almost a decade ago, when sport utility vehicles were at their peak of popularity, only one in every eight vehicles sold was a small car.

The switch to smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles has been building in recent years, but has accelerated recently with the advent of $3.50-a-gallon gas. At the same time, sales of pickup trucks and large sport utility vehicles have dropped sharply. In another first, fuel-sipping four-cylinder engines surpassed six-cylinder models in popularity in April.

“It’s easily the most dramatic segment shift I have witnessed in the market in my 31 years here,” said George Pipas, chief sales analyst for the Ford Motor Company.

......

“The era of the truck-based large S.U.V.’s is over,” said Michael Jackson, chief executive of AutoNation, the nation’s largest auto retailer. Sales of traditional S.U.V.’s are down more than 25 percent this year. In April, for example, sales of G.M.’s Chevrolet Tahoe fell 35 percent. Full-size pickup sales have fallen more than 15 percent this year, with Ford’s industry-leading F-Series pickup dropping 27 percent in April alone. Sales of pickups, though, are expected to strengthen with the economy, because of their use as commercial vehicles



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/02/business/02auto.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

Luv my little car!

It's an automatic. I love Corollas! I had a newer model, but it was in several accidents. A deer and speeding colleger students finally did it in. :(
I'm so glad that I sold my Dodge truck. I drove to to the horse farm and for camping trips and to haul all sorts of stuff. I loved it but I couldn't afford to drive it at 17 MPG (that was optimum gas mileage.)

but she drives a manual. This is her second one (with an Echo in between) and she's been happy with them.

Hubby, 1994 Toyota Corolla. I only have a Vibe for my electric cart and it gets 35 on the freeway. Always had Toyota/Honda. Always will.

and it's the same car.

for a very long time. Basically because I feel like I have more control of the car. How much do you suppose you save on gas with a 5-speed.

It's really a question of which car you have, how you drive your stick shift, and how much coasting, in a safe manner of course, that you can do. There's a discussion in Edmunds.com discussion forums about mpg savings and manuals.


I can get much better savings than most living in a rural area with nice long stretches of mild grades where you can coast 50-60 mph forever. In the city, it's not much of an advantage because you can't really use the gears to their potential, and many automatics are engineered to get just as good or better mpg.

That they couldn't fit in small cars, blah blah blah? Now the FUVs aren't necessary, and they CAN fit in smaller cars?

Well, it will make the roads a lot safer. There's nothing worse than an FUV passing you at 80 mph in the rain.

are so stupid that they don't realize that 4 wheel drive may get you going faster but it certainly doesn't stop you faster. When it snows here in Md. I enjoy my slow 30 mile commute in my rear wheel drive car that has never been stuck, passing countless wrecked SUV,s! Its not all SUV drivers, probably just the ones that bought their huge house and huge SUV to show everyone how much better they were than you! Morons!

I worked in an auto part store part time for a few years back in school and heard countless people recount how they felt safer in their SUV because it had "4 wheel braking". :rofl: After picking myself off the floor from the uncontrollable laughter, I just loved the face they got when I explained that EVERY car has 4 wheel braking!!!

Dumb people.

The Los Angeles TIMES once ran an article I've never forgotten.

The article featured California's Park Rangers--the nice folks who have to go out and rescue vacationers from (usually) their own stupidity.

The Rangers said they often had to go out and pull brand-new SUVs from snowbanks or desert dry-washes. And they kept hearing the same two things over and over:

1. "In the TV commercials, this vehicle can get out of ANYTHING!"
2. "My SUV is only 2-wheel drive? Gosh! I sure thought it was 4-wheel drive!"

The Rangers eventually came up with a new radio code for these rescues: "TNS."

That stands for: "Thwarting Natural Selection."

:rofl:

Even that pales beside one Unhappy Camper I found on the Internet. On a board where park rangers post about stupid visitors.

This woman pulled up to the gate at Yosemite National Park in California, and asked the Park Ranger for directions to see the geysers.

He politely told her that she would have to drive a few hundred miles north, since all the geysers were in Yellowstone National Park, not Yosemite.

The woman got extremely irate and kept asking why he wouldn't tell her where the geysers were.

He kept telling her she was in the wrong national park to see a geyser.

When the woman got home from her vacation, she wrote a letter to the Ranger's boss, complaining that he refused to tell her where the geysers were.

I was volunteering for Eagle Days, which the Missouri Department of Conservation put on every winter as a public contact program, to show people eagles.

We had a carload of people ask to see the penguins. They heard there was a big penguin migration in northern Missouri every winter, and they wanted to see penguins.

People slow down to 80 here when it rains!! :)

people here don't have rain tires and just treat it like snow or something. Its one thing to fly through the rain waiting to hydroplane but its annoying as hell when its barely raining and you fall to gridlock because people have no clue what how to drive their own cars. Most people have no idea how their car reacts to certain situations so when their car loses traction in a turn or in breaking, they just freak out, jam the breaks and smash into whatever is near them. After they do that once in their lifetime, I think instead of learning about how their car handles, they just slow down...at least here they do, it sounds like you all may have it different where you live.

:scared: It is horrible in Los Angeles

Been telling people for years to stop buying those fucking cars and to get rid of them....only one person listened to me...ANd barely in the Knick of time...She got on her knees and thanked me...She didn't get much...but at least she got rid of it...This past december.

But I did buy myself an electric bicycle last December when they were cheap, now they're selling like hotcakes at WalMart/Target. I love it for zipping around our small town.

Bruce

I love my little smartie!

Just curious-what kind of reaction are you getting from other people?

but people ask me what kind of mileage I'm getting (hard to tell yet, since I've had it less than two weeks), how much it costs, is it electric, etc. Some people think it's adorable and others don't like it. I do see people staring at it when I'm driving -- some smiling and others laughing.

My husband and daughter were really against my getting it, but it's grown on them.

I have to drive to Cleveland next month for a couple of days for work and one of my co-workers refuses to drive that far in it with me. She's afraid of the semis on the turnpike. I'll probably wind up going in her car, unless I can find someone else in our group who isn't such a wimp. I really want to see what kind of mileage I get on that drive. I got about 30 mpg even in my Lexus 330 that I just turned in on that trip.

I live in the wild west, so I have a Korean 5 door that gets 40+ on the highway.

My other car is an electric moped.

Only it has side doors. The Izetta had a front door - that is, the entire front of the vehicle swung out on a hinge.

Most peculiar thing you ever saw. But we did get Mon & Dad & 4 kids AND a teenage babysitter in it all at the same time.

:P

What is it? I'll look it up . . .

Is that an illusion or are the front wheels smaller than the rear wheels?

The only Smart car I've seen on the freeway so far was being driven by the biggest moran to walk the face of the planet.

This car is about as tall as a truck tire, and not much longer than one, which explains why this guy was zipping in and out between semis while doing about 80mph. You can get squished doing that.

HA HA HA HA HA.......yeah,right.Because consumers are too stupid to buy low milage used trucks at fire sale prices that will be a glut on the market for the next decade.....Bon Chance, Ford execs....

like the article says, why not buy a second-hand castoff from some consumer?

honda accord 5 spd gets almost 40 mpg on the highway, pretty good for a midsized sedan

high price gas is good!

Next, building more subways!

It still kills me to put $37.50 in my tank when I know it used to take $18.50 - but a tankful lasts me more than 2 weeks.

Don't see so many Hummer ads on tv anymore either, do we? :shrug:

But I was seeing the ads for the H3 just a couple of months ago here in Texas, where people still think bigger is better and the repukes don't mind if the neighbor's 20 yo son is KIA in Iraq.

I think there was a survey three or four years ago that concluded that gas would have to top $3.25 a gallon for people to change their driving habits. I think GM et al figured there wasn't any point in advertising for H3 with gas this high.

Basically a person at Minimum wage, has to STOP driving as gasoline price per gallon gets near his or hers Income. As the price per gallon gets near that price, they have to make a choice, quit driving, or quit paying rent or buying food.

For Higher income people the rule is NOT as bad (Basically a your income goes UP, the percentage of your Income spent on Food goes DOWN, i.e. how many meals can your eat? the same number i you are earning a Thousand or a Million Dollars).

here is where I stated how I came to the above (When Minimum wage was %5.15 an hour, not the $5.65 it is now):
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x19232#19240

decide between food and gas. Another person said it very simply that everything is going up in price except their wages.

me is that, yeah, gas was like $1.50 a gallon back then. At the same time, though, China and India were just beginning to explode economically. All of these Ph.Ds in economics who work for these companies couldn't foresee that those huge economies would make the price of oil go up significantly?

I dumped my Windstar on my ex-wife 'cause the transmission was going (it's now gone) and she needed something, anything to drive 'cause her car was frozen into a block of ice. I was thinking about another big van until I saw the projections for gas prices then went for a little used Subaru Outback wagon. It's all I really need except for this week when I'm doing house renovations, but a friend's letting me borrow his pickup.

junk yard with parts falling off before I give up.

I see more fords and chevys on the street in the UK than I do in the US. I also see loads of them when I'm in continental Europe. Why the Ford KA isn't released in the US is beyond me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Ka

Customers demanded (loved) their giant SUVs and gas guzzlers. Few learned the lessons of the '70s. We'll try again.

SUV buyers were generally idiots - sold cars for about three years, just stopped a couple months ago.

This is why I'm not so worried about the price of gas. Money is the only thing that some people understand or care about.

It's not as if Ford tried to introduce the KA in the US, even though it is wildly popular in Europe, leaving Americans who want a small car to turn to European or Japanese car makers. These companies make lots of popular small cars - that's just one example.

But except for when I sold Mazdas and the Mazda3 was the hottest small car, I was never able to sell very many small cars compared with the SUVs. People would opt for double the payment, triple the gas cost, double the insurance cost, even though 99% of them didn't drive aruond with many passengers, and half of them couldn't really afford the payment.

Yes you do learn these things as part of the car sales process... especially when you're trying to talk people out of buying an SUV. Used to drive me crazy!

So HAH! I told you so! All 200 of you! Reap it!

I just don't understand why Ford and GM didn't try to make a dent in the market that was all going to Japanese and European (mostly just VW in the lower price range) car companies. About two years ago my dad was shopping around for a new car and wanted a hatchback. The only American option that was worth considering was some Chevy that sold for $28,000. He ended up with a Mazda 3, which I think is a great car, and wasn't even 2/3 the price of the chevy.... however (!) in Europe at that time, the newest ford focus was built on the exact same platform as the current Mazda 3, they were just still selling the old focus model in the US. It's like they're trying really really hard to not sell us cars.

and I can only presume that there is a back door somewhere there where interests are weighed

and rewarded---???

Why would an American industry, otherwise, put itself out of business????

(goes for oil execs too). If you, yourself, make $20 million a year, even if it's only for a few years, do you give a damn if the company that you're CEO of fails or if the entire industry disappears? It seems to all be about getting instant profits and bonuses for the executives, none of whom care at all for the future of the companies or industries with which they're involved. It's a real shame. People used to take real pride in their work. I remember, when I was a kid, we only bought Wilson basketballs, footballs, etc., because we had family members who had worked in their factory in Chicago, and wanted to support the company, and our family members who were on that company's pension scheme. No one gives a damn about things like that anymore.

however, the ability to keep it going depends on their control of power to protect themselves
against prosecution --

The other question is how are the illegal profits hidden ---
I heard quite some time ago that a group of ex CIA people looked into Swiss bank accounts and
connected them to people in Congress -- this is 15-or more years ago now --- and it was connected
to drug war profits --- evidently they were making them quietly resign. I don't know about the
story be true ... but I wouldn't find it unbelievable.

However, I do think that anonymous Swiss Bank accounts --- or accounts like that anywhere ---
are a threat to us all.

On the other hand, evidently Hastert had a suitcase full of cash!

EVERY major carmaker that sells cars here has at least one SUV in their product line. Nobody sells good small cars here because nobody can make money on them.

Which leaves you open to the same kind of condemnation that taints all religious judgments, and for the same reasons.

Meanwhile, "progressives" who incessantly run down the domestic products blithely harm the UAW workers whose economic lives depend on them.

...and those judgments are usually based on a bad experience with a thirty-year-old Chevette, not objective judgment of current models.

Toyota, Honda, and Mazda all make several. Volkswagen makes one, and most of the Korean-made cars are quite small. Then there's also the Mini and the Smart (owned by BMW and Daimler, respectively). Before I moved to the UK, I drove a Hyundai, and I thought it was really quite nice. Each US car company makes only one even sort-of-small car, and none of them are as good as the imports. I know that some of the Japanese and German named cars are actually manufactured in the US, but in non-union places, which is a shame.

the oil industry in business and gas-guzzlers on our highways.

Someone told me today that a guy in California invented a car which runs on compressed air and as it runs it creates new compressed air. You fill the car with compressed air once and that's it!!!!

Think we'll ever see it?

Are we also to presume that our Congress are "idiots" re car mileage . . .
or are they supporting oil companies????

Which do you think --- ????

:evilgrin:

Very nice car...

While most SUVs are based on Pickup chassises, the people buying SUVs and Pickups are two different group of people. I have read other studies that show Pickup Drivers have attitudes much like Mini-Van drivers NOT like SUV drivers (i.e. Min-Van Drivers are noted for viewing "empowerment" as something the permits them to help others i.e. take the neighborhood kids to the local park, while SUV uses the same words, view it as a Statement of how important the SUV owner views himself (or herself). Pickup drivers are much like Mini-Van Drivers, they purchased the pickup to help themselves AND others to move cargo and/or people, something that SUV drivers will NOT do with their SUVs (Move their own cargo, and family members, but NOT neighbors or Friends).

Now there are sub-groups in all three camps, Pickup drivers who think like SUV drivers, SUV drivers who think like Mini-Van Drivers, and even Mini-van Drivers who think like SUV drivers, but these are NOT the vast majority of such purchasers of SUVs, Mini-Vans, and Pickups. My point is the Majority of each group, and how their view themselves AND act. Thus SUVs are going the way of the Sports cars of the 1970s (and for the same reason, gasoline prices). Like Sport cars in the 1970s, SUVs are status symbols, "I have made it". When such people downgrade to smaller cars, they still want to keep that image of themselves and willing to pay a premium for it (Thus the push for "Cross-Over" Cars, better fuel economy, but like a SUV, much like in the 1970s the "Sporty Type" cars replaced the muscle cars of the 1960s.

The real key is how the Japanese Car makers and the Big Three of Detroit handle the switch. SUVs are the most profitable product. People will pay a premium for "Status". Pickup drivers want the ability to haul, but that can be done, for cargo, by a trailer. I see Trailers increasing in sales (mostly by former Pickup drivers). I see the cross-overs being purchased by former SUV drivers (Through Cross-Overs are aimed at former Mini-van Drivers). I see mini-vans drivers keeping their mini-vans, having the latest "Status" symbol NOT high on their priority list (This can be seen in the delay from the termination of Station wagons in the late 1970s and their replacement by Mini-vans a few years later in the early 1980s).

The automobile industry KNOWS they customers better then the Customers know themselves. Even Mini-van drivers have a need for status, they just put a much lower price on it then SUV drivers. Remember 20% of all cars today are Compact or Subcompact (That is what one in five 5 means). One in Eight (or 12.5%) was a Compact or Sub-Compact ten years ago.

I should note, Compact and Sub-Compact includes MOST Sports cars, which sales have been in decline for 20 years, most do to lost sales to SUVs then other compact or smaller cars. Pontiac Fire-bird and Chevrolet Camaros production ended in 2002 (With Camaros production to restart in 2009).

i mean logically they make sense, but realistically, i don't know. i live in philly so that would mean having to find two parking spaces or one really big one to fit my car and a trailer. not that i have a truck now, but i might get one for work--while i love my little (4 cyl) z3, i can't quite fit a sheet of drywall on/in it. although we've moved mattresses with the top down, which turned heads like crazy, hah

The WWII Jeep (only 2/3rd the side of today's Jeep) hauled a tailer MOST of the time, it only had a four cylinder engine. Any four cylinder car can haul a trailer, you just have to attach a hitch and wiring (Which can be done at almost any U-haul). trailers are cheap to buy and even to rent. Lowe's has a nice trailer for sale for $500. U-haul can rent them for $15 a day and up )Covered ones are higher).

Yes, storage is a problem, but with rental costs so cheap, it may be more economical to rent when needed then to buy one and pay for storage.

As to the car's handling, it will use more gas, need longer distance to stop but even small cars can haul small trailers, 4x8 in size, which is the same as what a Pick-up can haul. If you need something bigger, renting a truck may be economical, why drive an empty pickup all over the place? My point is in areas where someone has a place to store a trailer, buying one makes sense, but someone like you, renting a trailer makes more sense (i.e. no cost to store).

he pulls a small (15 ft.) sailboat with no problems at all. There is certainly is no law that says you have to have a big truck in order to use a trailer.

That's why GM and Ford will survive to some extent. These are working vehicles. Chrylser pertty much is on it's way to China and will be focusing on cars so they virtually don't count as a domestic brand as we careen into the future.

Cars and cross-overs will pick up in importance to the Japanese and Koreans. Expect them to make even more of them here in the USA to save transportation costs. So there is some silver lining. But these jobs will not be in Michigan. GM and Ford cannot compete with the Asians, carwise, for the foreseeable future. And if I was GM, I would just get rid of the monster SUV hybrid concept. A Chevy Tahoe Hybrid SUV that gets 22 mpg will never survive against a regular gas Hyundai Santa Fe that is almost as big that gets 24 mpg at almost half the cost, or a Toyopta Hylander regular gas SUV that gets 26 mpg at 3/4 of the cost. There are only a finite number of fools coming through the door evey year.

So much for that responsive, innovative capitalist market that is supposed to be the savior of all humanity.

It's OK on gas mileage, but I'd love a Prius. Once my kids get older and I don't need the huge carseats, I'll be trading it in.

I'm trying to convince my husband to get a hybrid when he decides to get rid of his BMW...the thing is a much bigger gas guzzler than my car :)

Guys...gals....there is a simple solution staring us all in the face....

www.energystate.org

Please tell ur families!

Good mileage in town. I just have to be aware that I am the smallest guy on the road. I really pay attention to what is going on around me. But I drive on the freeway all the time and it does just fine. I usually try to stay around 60 so I get the best mileage I can - but it does 80 no problem.

Also, did really good during bad weather this winter. I really think it was better on ice than my jeep wrangler was.

Its got this big windshield so I feel like I am driving along in a bubble.

I love it. It handles well and is very comfortable. The mileage is great. I'm real happy with it. I had a Jeep before my Yaris, too!

When I shopped for the Yaris, the salesmen were practically jumping over backwards to get me to buy the big SUVs they had parked in the showrooms and out front instead. (I laughed at them.) There wasn't a Yaris on display at any of the three Toyota dealers I visited! They were all in the back lots. One saleman confessed to me that they can't keep them on the lot and were trying to move the SUVs. The SUVs were going nowhere. :D

see many brand new Escalades and other similar pieces of shit polluting the roads where I live. I suppose part of it is the prices have come down so much from dealers not being able to sell them that these morons think they're getting a bargain.

It might be that they aren't morons, but rather simply don't give a shit. The fact remains that if some other "moron" crashes into your vehicle, a larger vehicle is probably safer- and that's one reason among many that people who can drive large vehicles will continue to do so.

There are millions of Americans who can afford gas whatever it costs. For some people a $75 fill-up is the pain point, for others it's nothing. A lot of things are different when one's income is $10k or more per month.

into yuppieville as new tract mansions have gone up. My kid goes to high school with the kids from these gas guzzler driving families and we've had plenty of interaction with them. Believe me, most of them are brainless idiots whose conversation doesn't go beyond who they think will win American Idol.

I'm not insinuating that everyone who drives something larger than a compact is a moron, and there are certainly legitimate reasons why a person might need a bigger vehicle, but based on personal experience with the people around here, generally the bigger the SUV, the smaller the amount of gray matter.

And if they truly don't give a shit about wasting petroleum resources, then they are morons. The other day my brother spotted the manager of the Angels baseball team at the local Starbucks. He, of course, makes huge money and could drive whatever he wants. When he left, he drove away in a Prius. Smart choice.

Granted they are boat load of money now but in 5 or ten years they could be a real option.

for advances in technology and actually worked to keep the gas-guzzler on our roads ---

Now who would be interested in doing that?

Capitalism isn't about competition ---

it's about killing the competition ---

:evilgrin:

I hear the Toyota Prius Hybrid is flying off the dealer lots ---

"The era of the truck-based large S.U.V.’s is over" - that is thanks to high prices! But we shouldn't stop here, we should tax fossil fuels even higher! We still have a long way to go until we reach European levels. The Democratic Party should be the party of high gas prices, to force a switch to alternative energy cars and hybrids. These news are proof that is a working strategy. We'd be much better off explaining this to the electorate than to mimic Republican complaints about high prices.

Put us out of work why dont you:eyes:

:eyes:

This is the perennial argument, and it's the one standing in the way of the switchover to green energy. Commercial vehicles should also be heavily taxed, but at the same time, new alternate energy vehicles should be heavily subsidized with those same proceeds, making more people inclined to make the switch. Things will not happen fast enough if at ALL if we let the market take care of this. We need to tax fossil fuels back to the stoneage, and we need to do it now! The climate will not survive without government intervention, I thought it wasn't only the Greens who got this. Al Gore is still a dem from what I know! That Democrats join in the conservative choir for lower gas prices disgusts me. It's the lowest kind of political whoring.

Mr. and Mrs. America, prepare to hand in your fossil fuel vehicles, because the days of low gas prices are OVER!

I'm all for greener technology and alternative fuels, but depending on ones lifestyle, requirements and tastes, the vehicle has to get the job done, I dont really see electric trucks or other commercial type vehicles coming soon unlike cars which are lighter and will have less power requirement. What your proposing is disastrous,

so I don't have to worry about scratching it up. I've had it four years, paid $1,000 for it. It gets good gas mileage. I put in $20 to $25 of gas in each month or so. I've never really paid attention or even tried to figure out the mpg. It should be OK even though most of my driving is in town.