Written by: Tom Sawyer

This is somewhat of a follow up to some comments I made a while ago concerning SUVs and current gas prices.  While doing something else on my computer I ran across this interesting article (click here to read it).  I found the article interesting and agree with most of it – I don’t wish SUV owners would lose money.

Let’s begin by talking about what other countries think of us and our auto products.  I’m of the opinion, and the article backs this up, that other countries think we are not the brightest nation when it comes to how many SUVs are on the road.  The next time you are out and about look to see how many people are riding around in the big SUVs you see.  I would say that the vast majority of the time they aren’t carrying enough cargo or passengers to justify the large vehicle.  I don’t buy the sitting up high argument either.  Sure, you sit higher, but the center of gravity is higher and it doesn’t handle as well.  This equals a big vehicle blocking my way.  Please stay in the right lane!

Moving right along, I asked my brother why can’t American car companies make vehicles as efficient as foreign car makers.  He didn’t have an answer for me, but think about it.  When it comes to horsepower and miles per gallon American companies are the worst!  The other day I looked at a Honda Civic that gets 33mpg.  That wasn’t the hybrid Civic either.  Also, there is a whole class of cars that produce approximately 300hp with 3.5 liter V6 engines (or somewhere close).  The same size engine in an American car produces probably around 40 less horsepower.  What do they do to keep up?  They put a V8 in a car to match or exceed that horsepower and bingo the customer is burning more gas.  If you don’t believe me do some research on the Pontiac G8.

If you clicked on the link above you will have read that many dealerships are paying $8,000 less for SUVs in a trade. BAM!  The current gas prices just lowered the value of your SUV and that makes it hard to trade it in.  You keep paying those high gas prices – without a raise at work – and you just became poorer.  Your automobile expenses have you in the Mercedes, Lexus and Acura bracket, but you are driving….a Ford Expedition.  Do you really need that SUV?  You need it to pull your boat huh?  How much does that boat cost to fill up?

Like I said earlier, I don’t want SUV owners to lose money because I have some family with SUVs, but what is the answer?  You could try hypermiling, but that is very boring.  You could keep forwarding those emails to let everyone know when the next gas boycott is.  Those work so well (I’m being sarcastic).  You can continue to drive that big SUV and pay those gas prices – I put gas in my car the other day and it almost crushed me to pay $56.00 to fill up.  I know people who pay $100 to put gas in their SUV or truck.  That is unacceptable for me.

I don’t know the answer although I think if people stopped buying and driving these big vehicles automakers would have their lobbyists in Washington DC screaming bloody murder.  Remember, oil companies aren’t making the same profits as they were before gas went up.  They are making more profits!  If pressured enough, I believe things could change.

Let me know what you think can happen to change this situation.

* I read an ad where Exxon is doing research to improve battery technology for hybrid cars.  Yeah right! We should all be offended that people think we are that stupid.

Tags: SUV

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 13th, 2008 at 10:45 pm and is filed under Random Buzz. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.