After reigning supreme for the better part of two decades, the mighty SUV has at enlarged final 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 nowadays 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 final year, hit 57 percent final 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 final 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.
The major automakers have in the past year or so vowed to ramp up production of passenger cars, and industry watchers predicted sales of passenger cars would surpass those of trucks within in a couple of years. Instead, it happened nearly overnight.
“We had planned on the small car - truck reversal occurring in 2010,” Bragman says. “It’s coming a lot faster than anyone expected.”
Jesse Toprak, chief industry analyst for Edmunds, agrees, telling CNNMoney.com, “We’ve never seen that big of a change in the product mix, that fast. Certainly five to 10 years from now you’re going to look back and say the spring of ‘08 was the turning point. Even whether gas prices go down for a month or two, consumers are not going to rush back out and buy SUVs. that appears to be a permanent shift.”
The shift has the auto industry reeling. Auto sales
“All of our preceding assumptions on the full-size pickup truck segment are off the table,” Bob Carter, Toyota division sales chief said final week during a conference sign with reporters. Translation - we have no concept how low they’ll go.
The bright spot for Toyota is the Camry and Corolla joined the Honda Civic and Accord in unseating the F150 as the best-selling vehicle in America. For that reason, the automaker may ramp up production of the Camry at its light truck plant in Princeton, Ind.
Toyota isn’t the only one tossing SUVs by the side to form room for more passenger cars. Honda is cranking out more Civics and Nissan is cutting production of the Titan pickup and Armada SUV at its plant in Canton, Miss. (pictured) to build more Altima passenger cars. final month’s Altima sales rose nearly 44 percent by the same month in 2007.
And thereupon there’s General Motors, shutting down four truck plants and embracing compact cars with a promise that 18 of its next 19 new vehicles will be passenger cars or crossover utility vehicles - the industry term for big station wagons. Ford’s additionally cutting truck production and cranking out more CUVs and cars.
Small cars are the only thing keeping the industry afloat these days. Demand for hybrids has outstripped supply and many dealers have distant waiting lists. Sales of the Ford Focus were up 53 percent final month, as were sales of Mini. Honda and Acura sales rose 31.9 percent, Hyundai was up 26.3 and Nissan climbed 18.7 percent. Satori Aoki, chairman of Honda Motor Co., predicts the trend will continue. “One thing that’s positive is that consumer interest in fuel-efficient, environmentally friendly cars will grow,” he told reporters.
He’s right. The SUV is dead. expanded live small cars.
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