Green World In - SUV’s Out
June 7, 2008
Dallas, Texas (WiredPRNews.com) — Green is spreading like the newest trend with energy-saving appliances, lightbulbs and even cars taking over the globe in a desperate attempt to reverse the damage of global warming and devastating pollution. With the Green Movement taking over America, one of the biggest industries affected by the change is the automobile industry.
According to USNews.com, “Pickup trucks and SUVs are hurting. In May sales numbers, the Ford F-150 was knocked from its perch as the best-selling vehicle in the U.S., and sent reeling all the way to the fifth spot. A glut of SUVs sits on used car lots, almost unsellable in today’s market.” The notorious gas guzzlers of the 1990’s only got bigger and more intimidating through the mid-2000s. Once news hit the general public about how dire the state of the environment was, consumers became wary of the road hogs with regards to the impacts made on global warming, energy consumption and progressively lower gas mileage.
An interesting tidbit from the New York Times is the remarkable drop in retail value in trucks and SUV’s. When the road giants initially hit the market, a consumer couldn’t drive away from the dealership without shelling out roughly six-figures. In today’s market, however, the automobile makers have taken a hit to sales and have lowered their price to approximately $50,000.
Brent Robinson, sales manager of a Minnesota GM dealership, confessed to a journalist of the Toronto Star, “We haven’t had anyone crack the door on a Yukon or a Denali in 30 days.” Although the pulse of the SUV and truck sales is not quite flat-lined, it is definitely slowing to a crawling pace. Still, automakers are hopeful that American’s will revert back to the good old days of cowboys and contractors relying heavily on the rugged and durable automobiles that makes grunt work a little bit easier.
This Greenie hopes, however, that the movement of creating cleaner air and less pollution will evolve into a movement where automakers create an electric, four-door truck that is not only beneficial to the American worker, it will stand as a historic effort of human compassion on this world of which we must preserve in order to preserve ourselves.
Wired Greenie
