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Baraka_Guru · 06-08-2008, 07:32 AM

Quote:

The rise and fall of the SUV TheStar.com

The 2004 Ford Excursion, biggest SUV on the road, weighs 9,200 pounds, is 227 inches long, and gets about 10 m.p.g.

BULKING UP

The inaugural Jeep Wagoneer (1963), arguably the first modern sport utility vehicle (SUV), weighed in at 3,731 pounds, was 183.7" long, and got a miserable 10 miles to the gallon (fairly fuel-efficient at the time).
The first Ford Explorer (1991), which turned SUVs from a niche vehicle into a mainstream sector, weighed 4,900 pounds, was 184.3" long and got 15/20 m.p.g. city/highway.
The 2005 Chevrolet Suburban (aka Chev Subdivision), one of more ubiquitous SUVs, weighs 7,000 pounds, is 219.3" long, and gets 15/19 m.p.g.
The 2006 Hummer H1 Alpha weighs 8,114 pounds (less than the original H1 Hummer, at 10,300 lbs.), is 184.5" long and gets 11 to 12 m.p.g. The Hummer H2, is the H1's little brother.
The 2004 Ford Excursion, biggest SUV on the road, weighs 9,200 pounds, is 227" long, and gets about 10 m.p.g.
The Chevrolet Silverado 1500 and GMC Sierra, production of which at Oshawa will end, according to a General Motors Corp. announcement this week, each weigh about 6,500 pounds, are 205.6" long, and get 14/18 m.p.g.
For purposes of comparison, the 2008 Chevrolet Cobalt subcompact weighs 3,216 pounds, is 180" long and gets 24/33 m.p.g. The 2009 model Toyota Corolla weighs just 2,723 pounds and gets 27/35 m.p.g.

Long affair with guzzlers appears over
June 08, 2008
David Olive
Business Columnist

The 1963 Jeep Wagoneer was pug ugly, a rectangular box on wheels with a slanted, forlorn snout that had showroom wallflower written all over it. But it was the first modern sport utility vehicle (SUV), incorporating most of the features of today's SUVs – automatic transmission, four-wheel drive, power steering, brakes and windows, and a luxuriously appointed interior. It has been arguably the most influential 4X4 in automotive history, save for the original military Jeep MB.

The bestselling SUVs of the 1980s and 1990s, when these "houses on wheels" came to account for one in five cars on the road – the Blazers, Explorers, 4Runners, Grand Cherokees, Land Cruisers, Pathfinders, Sequoias, Sidekicks, Suburbans, Tahoes, Xterras and Yukons – all trace their lineage to a homely vehicle that was a desperate bid by a now-defunct Willys Motor Co. of Toledo, Ohio, to stay ahead of an increasingly competitive 4X4 market.

Willys' Jeep brand eventually found its current home, at Chrysler LLC, while Willys Motor passed into history. Now the same fate seems to beckon the SUV sector, a victim of:

The recent skyrocketing of fuel prices, which reached a crescendo Friday when oil surged $10.75, or 8.4 per cent, to a record $138.54 (U.S.) a barrel, with some predicting prices as high as $150 within a month.
Market saturation (practically all of the world's two-dozen or so major auto makers offer one or more SUVs);
An SUV backlash of long standing that predates An Inconvenient Truth (Ford Motor Co.'s 3.5-tonne, V-10-powered Excursion, the world's biggest SUV, boasting nine-passenger capacity and a paltry 10 miles per gallon fuel consumption, was promptly dubbed the "Exxon Valdez of Vehicles" by the Sierra Club).

Sales growth in SUVs and large pickup trucks has been on the wane for most of this decade as climate-change awareness grew along with traffic congestion in major North American cities. But it took the oil shock of the past two years, and especially of recent months, to push SUV and large-truck sales into negative territory.

The shift in consumer preferences has been abrupt and unprecedented. "The U.S. auto industry is going through changes probably faster than we've ever seen before," Fritz Henderson, president of General Motors Corp., said last Tuesday. That day, GM rocked the industry by announcing the closure of four SUV and large-truck assembly plants, including its Oshawa facility that turns out Chevrolet Silverados and GMC Sierras. About 2,000 jobs will be lost in Oshawa, while 6,000 GM employees there continue to turn out smaller passenger cars.

As Rick Wagoner, GM's chief executive, bemoaned Tuesday, as recently as last fall the Detroit auto maker was selling a not-great but respectable 105,000 SUVs and large trucks per month. So far this year, that number has plunged to 65,000 units. Ford Motor Co., which has done more than any auto maker to popularize SUVs, has announced its own SUV cutbacks. Both firms are focusing on the smaller, fuel-efficient cars and "crossovers" (gussied-up station wagons) the market now demands.

SUVs actually have been around for most of the industry's history. The labels "carryall" and "suburban" were applied to auto models since the early 1920s. The Chevy Suburban has been in continuous production since 1935. And the 1950s postwar move to suburbia saw a fad in "Woody Wagons" and other boxy people-and-cargo movers, many outfitted in fake wood-grain external panelling – just the thing for getting surfboards and party gear to the beach in trend-setting California.

What transformed SUVs from a niche to a dominant passenger vehicle of the 1980s and 1990s was the Ford Explorer, launched in 1990. Trim and inconspicuous by the standards of today's biggest SUVs, the affordable Explorer was sexier than a minivan (a vehicle no one aspired to, though they've sold in the millions) and sold a stunning 14 million units in its first decade. That's not far short of total North American passenger-vehicle production in a given year.

Six years later, the Explorer begat its larger stablemate, the Expedition, whose popularity, despite a $36,000 (U.S.) sticker price, was so surprisingly strong that Ford immediately stuck a fancy grille on it and called that "new" model the Lincoln Navigator. The Michigan Truck Plant in the Detroit suburb of Warren that pumped out these two vehicles was soon the most profitable auto plant in the world.

In hindsight, it's remarkable Detroit clung to SUVs even as the Prius generation of fuel-efficient hybrids presaged a massive shift away from gas-guzzling SUVs and large trucks, and a consumer move back to the smaller, fuel-sipping passenger cars of the 1970s and early 1980s – themselves a reaction to previous oil shocks, in 1973 and 1979.

But fuel prices were low in the 1990s. As recently as late that decade, crude was commanding just $9 a barrel (U.S.), a far cry from today's $135 range. And SUVs were immensely profitable. Classified as trucks, they lacked the stringent and costly fuel-efficiency, suspension and braking systems legally required of passenger cars. Like most SUVs, the monstrous Navigator, for instance, was a dressed-up truck consisting of a rectangular steel frame bolted on to the platform of Ford's entry-level F-150 pickup truck, with some chrome, leather and cupholders added. It cost about $24,000 to make and consumers were happy to lay out $45,000 to own one.

Those lofty margins drew other auto makers worldwide into the action, even such unlikely players as Porsche AG (the Cayenne). But only Detroit allowed itself to become almost completely reliant for profits on SUVs and large trucks – which explains why Motown has consistently lost money in North America for the past several years as that sector became hotly competitive and then declined.

Women have accounted for more than half the sales of SUVs. Their motive has been less about utility – carrying capacity, off-road mobility, or extra towing power (when was the last time you saw an SUV towing a mobile home or yacht along Wellington Street?) – than personal safety and self-image.

Focus groups by all makers found that women wanted to be above the traffic, related to the macho names and design of SUVs, and wanted their high road clearance in order to check for predators beneath the vehicle.

As noted in a 2004 New Yorker examination of SUV's inferior safety record compared to minivans and even sports cars, Malcolm Gladwell cited the work of SUV aficionado Keith Bradsher, author of High and Mighty, who summarized the focus groups he attended as identifying the typical SUV buyer as "insecure, vain, self-centred and self-absorbed, who are frequently nervous about their marriages, and who lack confidence in their driving skills."

That's taking matters to extremes, although it's perhaps worth noting the focus-group recollection of Toyota Motor Corp.'s top North American marketing executive earlier this decade, who remembers "the elegant woman in the group (who) said she needed the full-sized Lexus LX 470 to drive up over the curb and on to lawns to park at large parties in Beverly Hills." You could do that with an unadorned F-150 pickup, but you'd be making a different sort of fashion statement. And as Tom Wolfe long ago observed, "Ask a Californian to describe himself, and he points to his car."

Vehicles as fashion statements have lately become out of reach in the midst of a U.S. economic slowdown, a 28-year-low in U.S. consumer confidence, and a housing crisis that has seen up to 50 per cent drops in house values in selected U.S. regions, including California, Florida and the Midwest, which has put an end to the use of home-equity loans for luxury-good purchases. Suburbanites in both Canada and the U.S. have been especially hard hit, as their weekly community bills have escalated into the hundreds of dollars, and suddenly fuel-efficiency is more highly prized than the cupholder count.

Having had a place in North American motoring for almost 90 years, SUVs aren't about to disappear. We'll see far fewer of them in crowded urban areas with their dearth of parking spaces able to accommodate an Expedition. They will give way to crossovers and eventually the Smart cars and microcars soon to come from China and India as emblems of guilt-free, ecoconscious consumers.

But SUVs and large trucks will remain part of the global vehicle mix, reverting to the original role as truly rugged beasts that are a prerequisite for researchers, archaeologists and even environmentalists in the hostile terrain of the Brazilian rainforest, the Australian Outback, Northern Canada, the Scandinavian icefields and even the Western U.S. with its limited paved roads.

And heads of state, particularly in the U.S., will continue to be accompanied by a caravan of black Chevy Suburbans with blackout windows, signalling the arrival of the Secret Service.

Nothing sporty about that. But irreplaceably utilitarian? Absolutely.

What has been a hot topic it the news here in Ontario is the closing of the GM plant in Oshawa. They will no longer be making Chevy Silverados there--GM citing lower demand as a reason.

There were workers barricading the offices of GM--their way of trying to bring home their message of hard work and quality as workers. But I think it's all futile. They could have been the best damned truck on the market, but it isn't quality that's the problem, it's economics.

Do you think that this is the beginning of the end for SUVs and other trucks? If you look at the numbers, sales are faltering. SUVs have always been a big money maker because of the higher than usual markups, but demand is falling as consumers perhaps don't see the pleasure of owning one as rewarding anymore.

What about you? Are you relieved? Are you upset? Personally, I'm glad demand is shifting to more reasonable automobiles. With gas prices, pollution/smog, and such, I tend to look at the largest of SUVs with disdain. And I can't understand the rationale behind owning one. It can't be simply safety--it has to be more about status, pleasure, and thrills. This is a sign of overabundance. The average person should not be driving an SUV (i.e. SUVs should not be as common as they have been. They should be used for transporting cargo or people at nearly full loads, not as a vehicle to commute to work or casually go shopping or to the movies as one or two people).

I think this is a reasonable trend considering the circumstances and issues of practicality.