Increase In Full-Size SUV Sales Outpaces Overall Auto Sales Growth In US For First 6 Months Of 2010

[hatrack]

Automakers are tantalizing the market with 40-mpg small cars and 30-mpg sporty cars. Electric cars from major automakers are due by year's end. Plug-in gas-electric hybrids are under development. But guess what? The full-size SUV market segment — the bane of mileage-minders — is where the action is.

The jump in sales of full-size SUVs the first half of the year outperformed the rise in the overall auto market, according to tally master Autodata. And the growth rate also outpaced that of small cars, which conventional wisdom says should be the darlings now because of their lower prices and higher mileage.

To be sure, small cars still vastly outsell big SUVs — 974,000 to 121,000 the first six months, Autodata reports. But their sales were up 14% in the first half compared with the same period a year ago, while the overall market was up 17% and SUVs beat them both with 19%.

"Subcompacts and small cars aren't the hot segments anymore. Gasoline prices have come out of the sky, and we're moving back to something a little more normal" in fuel prices and buyer behavior, says George Magliano, director of North America auto forecasting for consultant IHS Global Insight.

EDIT

http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2010-07-30-suvs30_CV_N.htm

[dmallind]

1. Headline is a bit misleading. Relative growth rates are easy to explain

They are based on a dramatic downturn in SUV sales as both high prices and high gas costs kept them very low.

It's much like the June housing starts being up a healthy amount - because they started in the shitter.

[aquart]

2. Nonetheless, have we learned nothing?

[Nihil]

4. Isn't it sad that it is a rhetorical question?

i.e., that it is blatantly obvious to anyone with a brain that the majority
of the population have indeed learned absolutely nothing?
:-(

[kestrel91316]

3. Well, but we've solved that whole global warming thing, right? So no need to

conserve anymore.

[Odin2005]

5. we are a bunch of fucking morons.

[stuntcat]

6. citizens really DO need a personal Urban Assault Vehicle

Since that's what making babies is, an ACT OF WAR.

Series.

[Javaman]

7. Get ready for the price at the pump to jump again...

the auto corps are now making money off our stupidity, trying to get one last big sell off in before things really hit the fan again.

Then, once again, the morons that bought this house boat SUV's will cry a river at how much they are underwater with their auto loans.

revisting the stupid.

we don't learn. we wait till the last minute on everything. And in the face of overwhelming evidence contrary to our poorly defined, poorly supported and poorly conceived ideas, we will continue to believe that we were right.

we are a willfully ignorant species.