WOW, look at the article that has gotten front-page prominence on MSNBC. Future for SUVs remains murky - Oil & energy- msnbc.com "From a 2003 peak of 2.84 million SUVs, volume fell to just 1.26 million last year, and sales continued declining during the first five months of 2009, [*blah blah blah*] Perhaps more telling is the fact that the SUV’s share of the overall U.S. market has plunged from 17.1 percent in 2003 to just 7.8 percent for the current year-to-date." Is the impending gas crunch (and the senselessness of commuters driving Hummers) really "news" to anyone?
Would like to see a research project on a psychological / psychiatric profile of Hummer drivers. How many times do you suppose the word "insecure" would come up? Perhaps prefaced by "sexually" ?
The owner of the local Porsche dealership also owns the Hummer dealership. The service manager at the Porsche dealership said sales of Hummers remain brisk. He said if you're rich enough to afford a Hummer, the depression probably is not affecting you, and if you can afford a Hummer, the cost of the gas is insignificant. The fact that Hummers are not very good off road, and that in fact pretty much any other large SUV is more capable, cheaper, and burns less gas, means that people buy the Hummer for the styling, not the capabilities of the car. In other words, Hummers are driven by people who like to pretend that they are soldiers. The guy at the dealership had no comment on this.
I agree with you on the H2 and H3... they are really just bodied up pickup trucks. The Hummer though... is a real good off-roader... although they can't get through the Rubicon like we did in the CJs...
Agreed with the original Hummer/HMMWV. It's a bad-arse truck even though it's even worse than the H2 as far as environmental impact goes. The H2 is just as good as a RidgeLine off road.
So you're saying that Hummer owners suffer from small penis syndrome? No wonder they "cut off" Priuses on the highway - they're jealous of our big units.
I completely agree with this quote from the article: For now, the Prius is plenty of car for me. However, i can certainly see one day buying a boat or something that would simply require a bigger vehicle. When that happens, it'll be a used vehicle that will only get driven when it's needed. All we're seeing now is the drop of of the SUV as a status symbol as everyone else wises up. I certainly hope it doesn't kill the entire line, they are useful when used in their full capacity.
I figured as much. They aren't counting "crossovers" as SUV's. Considering that many crossovers a simply unibody SUV's their data is pointless. The GM Trailblazer as any example. The body-on-frame Trailblazer "SUV" was replaced by the unibody Traverse "crossover". The Traverse is heavier and bigger in every dimension than the Trailblazer it replaces. SUV: "Crossover"
