After reigning supreme for the better part of two decades, the mighty SUV has at long last fallen, done in by mounting fuel prices that have consumers embracing small cars and automakers scrambling to build them.
Nissan pounded the latest nail into the coffin today when it followed General Motors, Ford and Toyota in saying it will scale back production of trucks and SUVs in favor of fuel-efficient cars now that the bottom has fallen out of light truck market. Car sales, which accounted for half of the industry's volume last year, hit 57 percent last month while truck sales fell by double-digits to their lowest mark since 1995.
Need more proof the SUV is a goner? Ford's venerable F150 pickup ended its 17-year-run as the best-selling vehicle in America last month, dethroned by the Honda Civic and three other Japanese sedans. General Motors is looking to unload Hummer, the epitome of gas-guzzling excess, after sales fell 60 percent in May. The number of Civics sold in one month exceed the number of Hummers GM expects to sell all year.
"The SUV as a lifestyle choice, as a personal statement, is dead," Aaron Bragman, an industry analyst at Global Insight, tells Wired.com. "People are downsizing from their big trucks to smaller cars."
What's surprising isn't that SUVs are dead, but how quickly they fell. More.
NVDL: True. I wrote about the death of SUV's in January 2006, an article published in Heartland when oil prices were around $50.
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