xcel
11-13-2006, 10:48 AM
About a quarter of hybrid owners have an SUV in the garage, too. Why the conflicted carports? (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15658052/site/newsweek/)
Keith Naughton - Newsweek - Nov. 10, 2006
http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/501/Prius_II2.jpgAs gas prices have plunged since topping $3 a gallon this summer, a startling shift is taking place in the car market. Hybrid sales are slowing and SUV sales are speeding up.
Come again?
That’s right: the megawatt popularity of hybrids is dimming and Americans are rediscovering their favorite automotive guilty pleasure, gas-guzzling SUVs. And here’s something even more shocking: a surprising number of Americans have it both ways. They own a hybrid and an SUV. According to an analysis for NEWSWEEK by researcher GfK Automotive, 24.2 percent of hybrid owners also have an SUV in their garage. Oh sure, plenty of hybrid owners like small cars, too. One in five of them has a diminutive gas sipper in the family fleet. But SUVs, from large to little to luxurious, are hybrid owners’ No. 1 stablemate, according to GfK, an affiliate of the Roper research organization.
Talk about your hybrid households. What are these people thinking, mooring a big land yacht next to the ultimate driving dingy? I asked Victor Tinio, who owns a Toyota Prius and BMW X5 SUV. He says he sees the contradiction, but doesn’t feel like a hypocrite. “I never thought about it that way,” says Tinio, of San Jose, Calif. For him, the Prius is practical and the X5 is fun. He drives the Prius during the week, when he travels 80 miles a day for work. He even brags about leaving SUVs in the dust in traffic jams because California lets hybrid drivers travel in the carpool lane. “I see all these big SUVs who want to overtake me but they can’t,” says Tinio. “I really love that.” He says he got the X5 three years ago as a “status symbol” car and to haul his five children on skiing adventures. Now, though, they’re old enough to drive themselves and he’s thinking about trading in the X5 for a sports car. He loves the 48 mpg he gets in his Prius (versus 17 mpg in the X5), but he still likes driving the Beemer better. “As an engineer, I just marvel at the way the Prius works,” he says. “The only thing I don’t like about it is that it drives like a sack of potatoes.”
Tinio’s conflicted carport is emblematic of America’s struggle to give up the keys to our big rigs. Sure, in these days of global warming and global terror, we all want to save the planet and reduce our dependence on foreign oil. At least that’s what we tell the pollsters. But then as soon as gas prices fell to the current average of $2.20 (off nearly a buck from this summer’s highs), Americans started turning to SUVs again. In September and October, SUV sales climbed 12.4 percent compared to the same two-month period a year ago. Now, keep in mind those two months in 2005 included Hurricane Katrina, $3 gas and one of the worst auto-sales periods ever as Detroit ended its “employee discounts for everyone” promotion. So topping that wasn’t too hard. Still, jumbo SUVs like the Chevy Suburban had their biggest month of the year in October. Meanwhile, hybrid sales fell 16.2 percent from September to October, according to Ward’s AutoInfoBank. Andrew McHorney of San Diego bought an inferno-red Dodge Durango last month because he needs something big to haul his son’s Boy Scout troop and their camping gear. He claims to feel no guilt driving a vehicle that burns a gallon of gas every 13 miles. “For some people, SUVs were a fad,” he says, “but for me this is a way of life.”
So never mind all that talk of the death of the SUV. The only thing that really died is the SUV fad: as those big units lost status and gained stigma, sales plunged, sending Detroit into the ditch. But recent trends show that the right combo of low gas prices, new models and good deals (average SUV discount in October: $2,984) can still goose the SUV sales engine. “People were doing funerals for SUVs,” says Edmunds.com auto analyst Jesse Toprak. “But that was premature.” Still, Detroit’s not ready to declare the SUV’s comeback. “Ford Motor Co. is not counting on a rebound in full-size SUV sales,” says George Pipas, market analyst for Ford, which lost $5.8 billion in the third quarter. “We’ve entered a new world where small cars and crossover utility vehicles rule.”
Perhaps this kind of automotive oddity is to be expected in a culture with an appetite for having its cake and eating it too. Toyota officials insist their Prius owners aren’t simply looking to pinch pennies at the pump. “People who buy a Prius are proud they are helping the environment,” says Toyota spokeswoman Ming-Jou Chen. “They’re giving something back to the planet.” Maybe. But to me, this kind of driving duplicity explains why gasoline consumption continued to rise in this country even as gas spiked above $3 a gallon. It also shows why the average fuel economy of new cars sold today is lower than 20 years ago: we all talk a good game, but we’re not driving the talk.
Keith Naughton - Newsweek - Nov. 10, 2006
http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/501/Prius_II2.jpgAs gas prices have plunged since topping $3 a gallon this summer, a startling shift is taking place in the car market. Hybrid sales are slowing and SUV sales are speeding up.
Come again?
That’s right: the megawatt popularity of hybrids is dimming and Americans are rediscovering their favorite automotive guilty pleasure, gas-guzzling SUVs. And here’s something even more shocking: a surprising number of Americans have it both ways. They own a hybrid and an SUV. According to an analysis for NEWSWEEK by researcher GfK Automotive, 24.2 percent of hybrid owners also have an SUV in their garage. Oh sure, plenty of hybrid owners like small cars, too. One in five of them has a diminutive gas sipper in the family fleet. But SUVs, from large to little to luxurious, are hybrid owners’ No. 1 stablemate, according to GfK, an affiliate of the Roper research organization.
Talk about your hybrid households. What are these people thinking, mooring a big land yacht next to the ultimate driving dingy? I asked Victor Tinio, who owns a Toyota Prius and BMW X5 SUV. He says he sees the contradiction, but doesn’t feel like a hypocrite. “I never thought about it that way,” says Tinio, of San Jose, Calif. For him, the Prius is practical and the X5 is fun. He drives the Prius during the week, when he travels 80 miles a day for work. He even brags about leaving SUVs in the dust in traffic jams because California lets hybrid drivers travel in the carpool lane. “I see all these big SUVs who want to overtake me but they can’t,” says Tinio. “I really love that.” He says he got the X5 three years ago as a “status symbol” car and to haul his five children on skiing adventures. Now, though, they’re old enough to drive themselves and he’s thinking about trading in the X5 for a sports car. He loves the 48 mpg he gets in his Prius (versus 17 mpg in the X5), but he still likes driving the Beemer better. “As an engineer, I just marvel at the way the Prius works,” he says. “The only thing I don’t like about it is that it drives like a sack of potatoes.”
Tinio’s conflicted carport is emblematic of America’s struggle to give up the keys to our big rigs. Sure, in these days of global warming and global terror, we all want to save the planet and reduce our dependence on foreign oil. At least that’s what we tell the pollsters. But then as soon as gas prices fell to the current average of $2.20 (off nearly a buck from this summer’s highs), Americans started turning to SUVs again. In September and October, SUV sales climbed 12.4 percent compared to the same two-month period a year ago. Now, keep in mind those two months in 2005 included Hurricane Katrina, $3 gas and one of the worst auto-sales periods ever as Detroit ended its “employee discounts for everyone” promotion. So topping that wasn’t too hard. Still, jumbo SUVs like the Chevy Suburban had their biggest month of the year in October. Meanwhile, hybrid sales fell 16.2 percent from September to October, according to Ward’s AutoInfoBank. Andrew McHorney of San Diego bought an inferno-red Dodge Durango last month because he needs something big to haul his son’s Boy Scout troop and their camping gear. He claims to feel no guilt driving a vehicle that burns a gallon of gas every 13 miles. “For some people, SUVs were a fad,” he says, “but for me this is a way of life.”
So never mind all that talk of the death of the SUV. The only thing that really died is the SUV fad: as those big units lost status and gained stigma, sales plunged, sending Detroit into the ditch. But recent trends show that the right combo of low gas prices, new models and good deals (average SUV discount in October: $2,984) can still goose the SUV sales engine. “People were doing funerals for SUVs,” says Edmunds.com auto analyst Jesse Toprak. “But that was premature.” Still, Detroit’s not ready to declare the SUV’s comeback. “Ford Motor Co. is not counting on a rebound in full-size SUV sales,” says George Pipas, market analyst for Ford, which lost $5.8 billion in the third quarter. “We’ve entered a new world where small cars and crossover utility vehicles rule.”
Perhaps this kind of automotive oddity is to be expected in a culture with an appetite for having its cake and eating it too. Toyota officials insist their Prius owners aren’t simply looking to pinch pennies at the pump. “People who buy a Prius are proud they are helping the environment,” says Toyota spokeswoman Ming-Jou Chen. “They’re giving something back to the planet.” Maybe. But to me, this kind of driving duplicity explains why gasoline consumption continued to rise in this country even as gas spiked above $3 a gallon. It also shows why the average fuel economy of new cars sold today is lower than 20 years ago: we all talk a good game, but we’re not driving the talk.