You might think that us Americans, strapped for cash just now because we’re in a depression and everything, wouldn’t go running back to gas-guzzlers just because gas prices were falling. Even if you didn’t think it was even remotely possible for gas prices to go back up—when have gas prices ever risen?—putting cheaper gas in a fuel-efficient car means you’ll have more money in your pocket for other expenses. Cheaper gas + fuel efficient car = more money on hand for piddling things like food and housing and health care. And should gas prices ever go back up—just a hypothetical, I realize, it’s not like there’s another war breaking out in the Middle East or anything—you won’t be stuck filling up your year-old SUV with $5-a-gallon gas.
But Americans are morons:
Trucks and sport utility vehicles will outsell cars for the first time since February, according to a December report by Edmunds.com, which tracks industry statistics…. “It was this summer that customers were concerned about the gas mileage. It hasn’t been a topic of conversation lately,” said Dave Lawson, the general sales manager at Pomoco Chrysler Jeep Dodge in Newport News.
Just because our actions appear moronic in the aggregate, doesn’t mean our individual actions are moronic.
For example, I spend a large part of my life in Pennsylvania, Texas, and BC in areas where due to our life and work you really needed to have a truck.
People just put off buying them for a while.
What needs to happen is the removal of INCENTIVES for buying a low mpg vehicle – and a carbon tax is the easiest method, as well as the business tax removal of incentives for vehicles that get lower mpg (total writeoff under current tax law, based on GVW, so that encourages the purchase of bigger vehicles than people need).
I’m feeling deja vu.
I give up. I quit.
Those are valid points, @1, but the truth is most Americans don’t really need a ginormous SUV or heavy-frame pick up truck; they’ve just been convinced by Detroit that they need these gas-guzzling monstrosities, just in case they have to haul 500 lbs. of cement or lumber, or an equivalent weight in groceries, which they maybe need to do once or twice a year – at most – in addition to being hoodwinked into believing that power-ratio should be the primary factor in making their decision, rather than, say, fuel-economy or safety.
And of course, it’s no coincidence that SUV’s & pick ups are the most profitable categories of passenger vehicles for the American Auto Industry, hence their desire to maximize profit on vehicles that are comparably much less expensive to build than more fuel-efficient cars, but for which they can continue to charge exorbitant retail prices.
I can understand the need to own a big ass, SUV type vehicle if you live in the sticks and have to travel frequently on potentially treacherous roads…which, at best, probably accounts for about 5% of the people who buy SUVs. The other 95% buy them because they like driving big, high vehicles and the majority of them don’t have a clue how to drive them properly.
I am going to punch the shit out of the next person who bitches about having to choose putting gas into their SUV or feeding their children when gas goes back to $4.00 a gallon or more.
It’s not just low gas prices. Dealers are practically giving away SUV’s now. They are desperate to unload the thousands of SUV’s that haven’t been selling for a year, and they are making cra-aazy deals. Seriously, $12,000 off of a Dodge Ram 2500? And even with those kinds of discounts, SUV sales are down over last year.
I don’t disagree, Comte.
And my solution stands.
Want to change behavior? Shift the incentives, don’t whine about what people do when the game subsidizes large vehicles.
@7: This.
Having just spend two weeks in Chicago during the worst weather I’ve known there for years, I appreciate the need for 4-wheel vehicles in snowy/icy urban areas. The spike in SUV sales may reflect a reaction against the series of storms that clobbered most of the US.
SUVs may be outselling them because they are so cheap (my God, have you seen the deals on them right now?) and even though they are outselling passenger cars the total amount of money the car companies are earning from all car sales is lower overall.
In other words, people are bargain-hunting but the car companies are still on the edge.
#11 is right. SUVs are being heavily discounted right now as dealers blow out a hellofalot of unsold inventory from last year.
An $8,000 discount still buys one a lot of $4.00/gallon gas.
Not all SUV’s are Gas Guzzlers….My small SUV fills up on 26.00 right now. I don’t drive it b/c I have penis envy or like to sit higher than other people (I WANT the tiny retro-cool looking VOLVO but it is impractical for my lifestyle) … I go camping in the summer and drive on forest roads/non roads so I dont LIVE in the sticks but in Summer I spend nearly every weekend there…I take it snowboarding in winter and need a vehicle that can fit myeself, my hubby and our 4 dogs, mountain bikes, surf boards, snowboards, gear, etc.
If big jeeps were better in snow and ice, wouldn’t the insurance premiums on them be lower cars, rather than higher, at least in places that have a lot of snow and ice?
@13: also this
They’re calling it “desperation marketing,” and it’s working only insofar as it clears otherwise unsaleable inventory. In addition to crazy-deep discounts to attract the scavengers, some dealers are rolling out “buy one, get one free” deals where if you buy a gas-guzzler model they throw in a second one for a buck. It’s going to spike up guzzler sales a bit, but probably won’t last.
@10. There is absolutely no need for an SUV in Chicago, at least in the city itself. (Unless of course, you work in construction or some other job that would require it). I own a Ford Focus and get around just fine in the snow/ice (getting out of a parking spot after a recent snow can be more difficult in a car like that, but I’ve never not been able to do it). Plus, we always have the option of taking the train or a bus.
On my old block, there were two people with Hummers. When I went to Alaska a few years ago (where people might actually need Hummers), I saw exactly one Hummer, and that was in a dealer parking lot. In big cities, SUVs are nothing but vanity.
Subarus and other 4WD/AWD cars handle much, much better in the snow than SUVs and can be used for off-road situations. I used to live in Minnesota and saw tons of SUVs spin out where even little Hondas did fine. The “SUVs drive better in snow” theory is a lie, pure and simple.
Re: your headline. Sky still blue, water still wet.
Will in Seattle @1:
You know a political idea has arrived when you have pundits clamoring for it from both the left and the right. The cover story in the current issue of the über-conservative Weekly Standard is a polemic in favor of a revenue-neutral gas tax:
The Net-Zero Gas Tax
The revenue-neutral, or “net-zero,” part comes from the gas tax hike being offset by an equivalent cut in the payroll tax. So you promote energy conservation and energy independence at the same time you promote job creation.
Now is the time–the golden window of opportunity time–to gradually phase in a carbon tax, or simply a gas tax. Does anyone in their right mind truly believe that gas is going to stay cheap in the long term?
Sell more trucks! Then the price of hybrid econoboxes will fall, and I can buy the new Prius/Smart/Mini/Volt I want sooner than ever.
Another way of putting it: sales overall are way off becuase of the soft economy and tighter credit, but they are slightly less off for that segment of the market that caters to those who don’t need to worry about the economy or tight credit.
That’s also why you are seeing statistics indicating that sales of luxury goods are up relatively speaking. People are suddently thinking to themselves that with the economy gon tits up, they might as well spend there money on Bollinger. It’s just that those who buy Bollinger aren’t worrying so much about the economy.
In addition to the price of said SUVs and trucks being extremely low, my republican brother says its also a reaction to Obama, like the increase in gun sales…
as in, you never know when you might need to “run away in yer truck with yer gun to save yer fambly from the colored Communist president.”
If it’s any comfort, many automakers reported monthly sales for December today, so proportionally a mini-spike in SUV sales makes less difference on the road than one might think, given:
Toyota off 37% since last year
GM off 31%
Ford off 34%
Chrysler off 53%.
@14: Insurance premiums are higher on SUVs because they’re expensive vehicles and thus cost more to repair. Plus, they tend to inflict more damage on the cars they hit. Nothing to do with how they handle in the snow.
Hey! Prices have gone through the roof before people. They can go through the roof again. Then you’ll hear stories about desperate people trying to unload them again. The middle east is never stable.
Would it kill companies to sell fuel efficient hybrid cars with 4 wheel drive and enough ground clearance to go over pebbles without getting high-centered?
Look, we’re not going to stop using oil as a primary source of energy until every last drop has been used up. Consequently, every gallon of gas you save by buying a hybrid is one more gallon your next door neighbor can put in his hummer.
An SUV is better than a car in every way except gas mileage. Safer, more power, more room, and off-road/bad weather capability; who wouldn’t want one if they can afford it?
#13, everyone who owns an SUV can justify it because of their Costco/Walmart lifestyle. It doesn’t make it less irresponsible. If you’re driving to beaches and mountains and wilderness all the time, it’s even more irresponsible.
@25
Nope. For one, here’s a link from the NHSTA showing the cost of repairs on SUVs is actually a little below average for all but the most extreme behemoths. So it’s not because they suffer more damage or cost more to repair. Want more?
@27. Well… I would not want one. Living in a city where parking is at a premium, I love having a small car that I can parallel park in tiny spaces. It’s been a real advantage, especially when I didn’t have a parking spot with my apartment. Also, the other historical disadvantage to SUVs is that they cost more than the average car.
You know this is really a false statistic.
Overall vehicle sales are down by 30%-40%. This is largely as a result of tightening credit markets and the inability of consumers to get financing even if they wanted to by a car. (Hybreds with high MPG or otherwise.)
Since in this country only the very rich can afford to by a car with cash, it should really be of no surprise that the only vehicles being sold are the kind bought by wealthy fucks for whom pesky gas prices are NOT a limiting factor for their pocketbooks.
Yes, as a percentage of overall sales, SUVs are up. But compared to last years sales they are down. In fact, the only carmakers who reported actual gains in sales over last year were Cadillac and Rolls Royce.
(And if you needed any more proof that this is really an availablity of credit issue, and NOT one of misdirected consumer choice, there it is for ya!)
@28, what’s the responsible way to get to the mountains, beaches and wilderness?
Car sales are way down, and SUVs are ridiculously cheap right now – mix that with a particularly bad winter, it’s not hard to see why they outsold more practical cars.
People always view their “lifestyle” as a fixed, as if they have no control over it, and it’s their god-given right, nay–duty, to haul a boat, or five kids or ten sheets of plywood once a year. Their lifestyle CANNOT CHANGE, so they HAVE to buy the large vehicle.
What horseshit. People’s “needs” always expand to fill their available resources (and usually then some–hello US consumer credit card debt!). And when the resources contract hard enough, whoa! Suddenly that immovable rock of a lifestyle magically changes.
Coming soon to a suburb near you.
@32 – by bus.
Yeah, you heard me.
@35,
So, hang on, my son and I want to go hiking on the Olympic Peninsula, or backpack camping somewhere in the North Cascades or rockhounding just north of Cle Elum — which bus do I take, again?
@36:
Maybe not a bus, but you sure don’t need an SUV for any of those things — I did that all in a VW Rabbit for years and without any problems. The idea that you have to have a 4-wheel drive SUV if you want to get into the backcountry in this area is just simply assine.
Dan: WE Americans are morons. You would not say “us…wouldn’t go running back to gas guzzlers.” Should be “we…Americans…”
Love and kisses,
Oh, sure if you’re some idle aristocrat living off a trust fund with tons and tons of free minutes or hours even to study and learn how not to drive like a brain dead bowl of porridge. Then you can toot around in the back country with a front wheel drive car. But what about the average regular person who isn’t in a position to be all Renaissance Man and learn new things such as what the steering wheel and brakes and all that stuff do? Should they read it in a book? Right. And how are they supposed to learn where to find books? Some other book, I suppose? Right. Are normal people even supposed to acquire new knowledge after a certain age, 18 or 20 or whatever when school and shit is over? Where will they put all this knowledge? In their heads? Typical liberal Utopian dreams where people in efficient cars go and get all educated and fill their heads with facts and skills and knowledge and all that stupid crap.
What next? Gun safety lessons, Professor Know Stuff? Ha!
@37, is a small pickup okay with you? I’m guessing campers and outboard boat motors are right out…?
Agree with #5.
I love it when a tiny Asian lady who can barely see over the steering wheel is driving the Expedition.
Fuckin’ scary since I’m sitting there in my 2 seater, left signal on, waiting for traffic to make my left turn. . . when she passes me on the left. I followed that ho’ down the road and asked her if she knew what “the right of way” is and tried to explain how she could have caused a bad accident. How you don’t pass a left turning car on the left. She played dumb like oh so sowwy – I tiny Asian – can’t understand. Forget about understanding the driving laws or being capable of driving an Expedition.
Really love the 5 foot bald man, almost 5 feet around jumping down out of his Hummer – too sexy I tell ya’.
Yip, that 5% actually needing a big ass SUV good for you – they are havin’ a sale! Run for it sucker! I’m sure the SUV you have now is not good enuf’. Hope you don’t regret it when the gas goes back up.
That other 95% who don’t really need them are 100% MORONS. Don’t care how much you snowboard or how many dogs and kids you have. Make all the excuses you want to maintain what you think is cool.
The 4×4 cars or even front wheel drive cars with some chains get to Stevens just fine. Just hold off going during the storm.
Having too many dogs and kids is pretty moronic as well.
And really. . .why do so many SUV drivers like to tail gate and come right up on the bumper of the car in front of it at a stop light? Either that or they are poking along in front of you 5-10 under speed limit like they own the road and you can’t pass – ha, ha.
All I can figure is #1 they really are big bully asshole types or #2 they really do not know how to operate the SUV properly. Either sucks
All I know is the SUV drivers sure do give out plenty of reasons to be hated.
I can not wait til the gas prices go sky high again and put most of them back off the roads. All those fat old men getting out of the SUV and on their weekend motor cycles was pretty funny!
I’ve never been to mountains, beaches, hiking grounds that I couldn’t get to with my sedan.
What if I want an SUV to piss off my uptight, PC Seattle neighbors off? The little, nosy, self righteous, pious, fascistic prigs who think driving a Prius and never shaving their legs or wearing lipstick makes them holy.
You can’t put a price on that!
Dear Non-Renewable Gas Guzzling Mountain Man:
Hey, guess what? Some lifestyles are simply not economically or environmentally sustainable. Unfortunately, driving hundreds or thousands of miles a year in a big truck to go hiking or what have you is not one of them. Sorry. Even if you have a Sierra Club sticker in the window.
I know it’s fun: I myself have driven thousands of miles to go backpacking (in my front-wheel drive Toyota Matrix). I love that shit. But I don’t pretend that I have some right to do it. Even though I am a born-and-bred American Male, I have not been granted the divine right to Recreate Righteously in the Glorious Western Wilderness.
Maybe you should do what I do now:
Bicycle. Fucking. Tour.
Leave from your front door and you don’t need a car!! And with gas prices ever higher, you can expect the number of RVs on the road to decline yearly. Hallelujah!
@44,
Technically, I still do have the right to do it, and so I will continue to do so. Sorry.*
*I’m not really sorry
No you don’t. Driving a car anywhere is a privilege. Being able to afford expensive recreation is a privilege. The American Lifestyle, which appears to have begun wobbling quite seriously, is a huge, gigantic privilege that is bought at enormous cost*, the balance of which is coming due soon.
Do not confuse driving your SUV to the mountains with other basic freedoms you, as a human, enjoy.
I suggest you keep taking your car in the woods as much as you. Check back with my in a year. Then ten. Let’s see where we are then and see what is considered a right and what is not considered a right in America.
*the most dire of which are usually passed along to others who don’t have as many rights as us. Whoops, I mean: “Aren’t as privileged as us.”
@46, I doubt this blog will still be online in ten years, nor will I likely still be camping, fishing and hiking with my son in my fifties, but you’re on.
I look forward to rewarding your next ten years of smug superiority! How dare I have fun that I don’t suffer for. I assume you’re pedaling right now, to power the computer you’re reading Slog on (and did you happen to catch the recent 60 Minutes segment on what ends up happening to all our high tech trash, in China, speaking of ridiculous privelege and its impact on the unpriveleged?).
SUVs are the ultimate vanity vehicle. People only buy them to kick start their flagging 33 year old cubicle working libido. When people state that they are safer in an SUV (because of height and size etc) what they’re really saying is that the other driver, pedestrian, cyclist is toast! The SUV is the road equivalent of George Bush’s pre-emptive strike.
@47 Why not? I still do do those things with my dad and he’s 56.
I love it when people pull the, “Well, you’re using a computer, etc.” I know my luxurious lifestyle sucks resources faster than it should. I dread the future just as much as anyone else. It’s not like I’m going to gloat when our standard of living is (possibly) in free fall. You look forward to rewarding my smugness? I’ve certainly enjoy rewarding your smugness every time a motorist shouts death threats at me while riding my bike to work. Everyone has loved rewarding the smugness of decades of environmental degradation and suburban blight.
It’s just that I hate the “I deserve to do this because I deserve to do this” attitude that has had a lot to do with the world’s current predicament. Even though I haven’t forsworn civilization and gone to live like a hermit in the woods, I try to do what I can. And when I’m on the internet reading blogs, I guess part of what I can do is argue with strangers on the internet about it.
When I’m out living in the world, what I can do is ride my bike 90% of the time and take the bus 5% of the time and wear sweaters inside when it’s cold and reuse and recycle and try to feel like I give a tiny shit about the world our ancestors will inherit and blah blah blah. You’ve heard this shit before.
So, why do you think you have the right to drive your SUV to recreate? Who, or what, granted you that right? Just curious.
@49,
I don’t actually own an SUV, though I’ve considered getting a small pickup truck recently as a second vehicle (we own a minivan currently – dunno who granted me the right to own that, either, other than a local Dodge dealer). We do carpool to recreational activities all over the state in friends’ trucks and SUVs sometimes, though. I’ll have to remember to ask them who the Hell they think they are and who exactly granted them their right to own said wasteful vehicles. We also go biking.
I can’t see myself sleeping on the ground in a tent in my fifties (it’s already painfully uncomfortable for my old body), nor do I anticipate my son wanting to hang out with me in ten years in his twenties. That’s why I’m trying to make the most of doing this stuff with him now.
@28..I would NEVER set foot in a Walmart or Costco.EWWWWW.
I prefer boutiques and quality, Thank You very much.And PCC for food. I ride my bike for around town things and my small SUV (It gets better gas milage than my last car…a VW Jetta)on weekends to drive in the mountains/off-road etc.
I am not irresponsible and I agree that Hummers and Gas guzzlers are for fuck-tards…but my little Lexus gets great mileage. As stated in an earlier post, I want the cute little Volvo X30(like a mini-cooper) but it would be of no use to me. Like my Jetta, it would get gutted in the woods.
I’ll be getting the Hybrid model of my SUV when it’s time for a new one…and i’m gonna LOVE it:)
” Hummers and Gas guzzlers are for fuck-tards…but my little Lexus gets great mileage.”
Yes, but what if the fuck tards are driving fewer miles than you, ever think of that while you sit in traffic getting indignant?
@47 My 59 year old Dad just climbed Kilimanjaro!! (Fucktards…imagine how much gas was consumed to get him there..OMG…how dare he waste our natural rescouces to have an enriching life experience!!??!)and he and I are doing Machu Pichu in 2010.
I never get idignant in traffic… I am rockin out to Jay Reatard or Bob Mould at all times Baby:)
That last post was to numero 52
a reason why SUVs and especially trucks still have strong sales compare to cars, because most trucks are used for commercial purposes, they can be written off as a business expense. If Congress wants Truck and SUV sales to go down, (Which I doubt, because farmers and the construction industry would raise holy hell) is closed the loophole for business car extemption. It won’t happened, but it is one reason why certain trucks are always the best selling models. Business go through them like condoms at a herpes convention.
@34..You are right..I’ve seen the light. I’m moving to the frozen tundra and turning my doggies into a sled team. I will wear kick ass shearling headpieces…I’ll poop in a hole in my dirt/ice floor…Thank you for inspiring me:)
Don’t give the SUV a bad rap, it the dumb ass drivers who are at fault. I live on Capitol Hill, and I drive a midsize SUV, but unlike the suburban Eastside assholes who drive really shitty around Seattle, my car is parked 9 months a year. I only drive it in the summer months when I go camping and have to carry a lot people and shit, which is what these cars were made for.
#28 can eat my ass! I love Costco! Great deals and a progressive company that does not try to fuck their employees out of good pay and benefits.
Where do you shop you granola eating Motherfucker? PCC? Not everyone can afford PCC exorbant prices, that is why they go to costco.
I love how this can all be boiled down to an issue for those WITH MONEY. Being a poor (can I say desperately poor?) person in their mid-twenties, it completely baffles me how this could be an issue to anyone at all. I hate to say it, but those super hip, ultra fuel efficient hybrids cost just as much as the “look at how much money I have” SUVs.
Some of us shamefully shop at WalMart, Target and Costco for things that we can’t rationalize purchasing for higher prices. I would love to be able to say that I only shop at local boutiques, buy my food from co-ops who only stock locally, organically grown produce, but it’s not realistic for someone in my financial situation. I cannot even fathom spending $12 for a pair of underwear when I can spend $7 for 6 pairs at a big box discount store.
As for my car, I drive a used Hyundai Accent, which is about the size of a pregnant rollerskate. It gets 30mpg mixed, which is fantastic, because it meant that when gas prices were over $4/gal I could afford to drive AND eat. I didn’t buy it because I was trying to show people how comfortable I am with my CO2 output, I bought it because it was cheap! I spent $5k on it, and it works just fine for me.
Ironically, driving my tiny car ends up costing me LESS than taking the bus for the most part, which I still do when I’m working in the city, and can spare the hours it takes me to get from place to place. When I visit friends and family on the eastside, I’m driving.
My next car, hopefully, will be the most fuel efficient, least expensive, tiniest AWD car I can find. Even with chains, countless hours of driving experience (yay for pizza delivery!) and the utmost patience, driving a front-wheel drive car in that kind of weather is a nightmare. In Woodinville, where my family lives, I watched countless SUVs trying to make it up a large snowbound hill, only to fail about halfway up. A tiny Subaru with AWD AND chains shot up it with no issue. Since I had neither, I walked from the closest parking lot (about a mile away) and had to jump into bushes when I was almost hit by some asshole rich kid joy-riding in Daddy’s Ford Super-crew F-350.
Today, in heavy rain, I get the joy of listening to cars spin their wheels on the wet pavement on Lynn street, SUVs and hybrids alike.
Moral of the story? Your hybrid does not make you superior, and your SUV does not grant you ultimate power over mother nature. Congratulations, you have too much bloody money.
@59..Sorry…Not into Rimming. Especially not with people who shop at icky stores.
AMERICANS ARE MORONS. not because of this but because of all of it. look at us a nation of fucking sheep.
@60..I am 28 y.o. and work in social services..and DON’T have tons of $$$.My husband and I are DINKS(dbl income no kids..way back when..and in my case…..) I was just trying to make the point that simply b/c I drive an SUV, I am not the person #28 was implying.
One can shop quality (say at boutiques) without spending a fortune.
Didn’t mean to offend you or anyone else, except #28.