The Decline of Sport Utility Vehicles?

Answer 1

Once the kings of the American road, sport utility vehicles (or SUVs) are now experiencing a quick decline in popularity among car buyers who once shelled out as much as $45,000 for them. The SUV shot to popularity in the early and mid 1990s and dominated the car market and the roads of America for nearly a decade until the recent economic downturn of the mid 2000s relegated it to the bone yard.

Sport Utility Vehicles were designed to meet an increase desire for vehicles that could offer spacious interiors and room for several people while offering the power and cargo capacity of a pickup truck. The SUV was born to meet those standards offering towing and cargo capabilities with spacious interiors capable of carrying seven people in certain models. Car makers focused their efforts on meeting this demand because they could often make a greater profit selling SUVs than they could selling sedans and other smaller model cars. Car buyers loved SUVs because they offered the seating capacity and room of a station wagon with the toughness and off road ability of a pickup truck, without settling for what some felt was a rougher look to a vehicle.

The Sport Utility Vehicle has fallen on hard times, and along with it the automakers who once invested so heavily in its manufacture. High gas prices and poor fuel efficiency lead to the ultimate downfall of the SUV. Most models sported mile per gallon figures worse than a typical sedan but only slightly better than a pickup truck. Poor mileage combined with prices at the pump that reached near $5 per gallon in 2007 has led to a steady decline in SUV production and purchases. The final nail in the coffin of the SUV has been competition from so called crossover sport utility vehicles. These vehicles offer less power and cargo space than their bigger brothers, but still boast the ability to do so and often feature mile per gallon averages much closer to sedans.

While the sport utility vehicle will always remain a popular choice in regions where the towing, cargo capacity, and four wheel drive ability it offers are necessary, its time appears to have come on gone on the streets of big cities where it was more of a status symbol than a true utility vehicle.