Gas Prices, Forcing Americans Into Compact Cars!
As gas prices continue to rise, and the society struggles to keep its head above water, we are seeing more and more Americans trading in their oversized, gas guzzling SUV’s for smaller more efficient vehicles. While being a way of escape and survival for some individuals, we are now seeing the economic backlash of this trend.
Since there is no real demand for the truck and SUV right now, consumers are not getting near as much money for their trade-ins. So, what they once thought of as a ego-boosting investment has recently been considered a financial curse cheating them out of lots of money when the trade it in, or when the fill it up!
Another repercussion of all this is the millions of dollars being lost by the US automakers. Companies are being forced to stop production of SUV’s and has even lead to closing down whole plants. G.M.’s chief executive, Rick Wagoner, said G.M. will cease production at four North American assembly plants that make SUV’s and pickups by 2010.
To show you how real this situation is in are economy, the Honda Civic and Toyota Corolla ranked as the two top-selling vehicles in the United States in May. This is a huge difference from the 2 top selling vehicles, the Ford F-150 and Chevy Silverado in 2005.
To many, this is a devastating situation that poses this question, “Will this be the end of the SUV era?” If so, we need to not just look at the negative side of this, but see how there could be some good come of all this.
For one, SUV’s take up way to much room on the road causing government to widen lanes and businesses to make wider parking. Do you remember when the excursion first came out? It was insanely huge, and certain places didn’t even have parking to fit them. So they would just bogart their way into 2 spots and say, “Its ok, I own a big time SUV.”
Also, it was to be better on the environment to have people driving Honda Civics instead of H3’s. If they are totally cutting out the production of SUV’s within the next few years, there has to be a substantial difference in the amount of pollution being distributed.
The bottom line is this. We are Americans and we think that we can have everything and anything. Some probably can, but I some point we had to be humbled and realize that it’s not all about our big cars, and fancy trucks. The rest of the world has been conserving gas and energy for decades and now it is time that we change our lifestyles to fit our current reality. We will see the end of this crisis, and like Americans, we will survive!
By Chris Chism
