== The end of the SUV = By Mark Morford

[madokie]

Love 'em or hate 'em, the American land yacht is rumbling into the sunset. Rejoice?

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2008/07/30/notes073008.DTL&nl=fix

Let us, first and foremost, be perfectly clear: it ain't over yet. Millions of dinosaurs still roam the Earth, the giant meteor of merciful annihilation has yet to strike, complete and total upheaval is still merely pending.

But it's coming fast. You can sense the shadow, the darkening, the imminent and oily doom. The dinosaurs are trembling, scribbling out their wills as fast as possible. They know the end is near, the signs are all in place, as that giant $63K Toyota Land Cruiser V8 you bought just a couple years ago violently depreciates down to less than half of what you paid for it. Ouch.

Yes, the imploding petroleum economy has spoken, and this is what it said: The era of the big, happy, dumb SUV is over.

Will you celebrate? Mourn? Mark this year on your calendar with the bright red Sharpie of petro-economic ignominy mixed with the cold tears of terrified Detroit CEOs, and dash off to buy a nice scooter? Well, why not? ...

[RC]

1. $63,000 for a machine to take your family to church, grocery store, etc. and back?

I wonder how they are affording their McMansions now.
I can't see squandering that kind of money. But then maybe that's just me.

[charlie]

2. Won't miss 'em

I drive a small car. I've always driven small cars. Now I'm back in yeehaw Texas, where if it ain't an SUV or pickup, it's a '78 Dodge van. And every time I get one of those treehouses on wheels in front of me, my road visibility is cut to between my bumper and their exhaust pipe. When I'm at a light, I don't know if the goober in front of me is sitting through a green yakking on the phone or if the light really has been red for the last 20 minutes. I'm looking forward to seeing over and around cars for once.

I was just reading about someone selling hybrid conversion kits for F150s, 41mpg. That's just good enough to do hellacious business here in Texas, it'd be like methadone for these Big Iron driving fools.

[MichellesBFF]

4. Can't wait!

It's not as if I didn't have 2 SUV"s, but they were the Chevy Tracker and a Toyoat Rav4. I would've gotten that as a 2 door if it had been available here. (Kept seeing Canadian 2 doors.) Now I drive a Mini Cooper, and all the monstrous trucks scare/blind me with their headlights.

Even my sister and BIL are trying to get rid of their SUV, a Chevy Tahoe, that they bought because he thought the kids would be safer in it. (He's a volunteer firefighter and has responded to some horrific accidents where the people in the small car died horribly.) But now with gas the way it is...

[charlie]

6. Yoiks!

You're even closer to the ground than I am (I own a Scion). Driving is a entirely different experience down there, isn't it? Hopefully necessity will soon return most cars to sensible heights, like they were 30 years ago.

[onehandle]

3. A big pile of them are going away, but they will be replaced with fuel efficient successors.

The current ones are headed for melting down and/or will be shipped overseas.

[spoony]

5. "terrified Detroit CEOs"

It isn't the CEOs who are terrified here. They have all the money they could ever need. The workers pay. They always do.

Incidentally, I don't know about where any of you live, but around here the air has far worse enemies than SUVs. I'd rather be behind a new Explorer in traffic than the thousands of POS twenty year old semis, trucks and cars that belch out smoke every time their driver hits the accelerator.

It's all fine and good that SUVs are going away, but there are downsides, and there are more egregious offenders I never hear anyone complaining about.

[charlie]

8. Downsides to air quality from SUVs disappearing?

I'd like to know what they are. Since it's fuel prices that are killing them, I doubt they'll be replaced by an expansion in the smoke-belching beater market, those things get even worse mileage.

In this one happy instance, the market is putting the kibosh on Washington-legislated incentives that helped make pickups and SUVs so popular. Smaller vehicles can't be classified as "light pickups" and must adhere to CAFE standards for cars, which are more stringent than for trucks. And because they won't be anywhere near the minimum weight, they won't qualify for tax writeoffs that can cover the showroom price of the vehicle. That's right, our gov't geniuses made Big Iron attractive by offering to pay for it with tax breaks.

[spoony]

11. Do me the favour of pointing out

where exactly I claimed there'd be a "Downside to air quality from SUVs disappearing." Since that isn't what I said nor what I was referring to, I rather doubt you'll be able to do so. The downside is for the workers here. The other downside is that while people are patting themselves on the back for getting all the evil SUVs off the road, the bigger sources of pollution on and off the streets will continue to operate totally unchecked. This isn't the victory you seem to think it is.

[charlie]

12. My mistake

Since you mentioned preferring cleaner SUVs to smoke belchers I thought you'd consider their disappearance a downside. I got you wrong.

So where did you get the notion I thought it was a "victory"? I happen to think a significant reduction in fuel usage and pollution is actually good. I'm not patting myself on the back for banishing evil, that's absurd. That other sources of pollution aren't being addressed doesn't negate the benefits we can expect from adoption of more efficient personal vehicles.

[DailyGrind51]

7. Other than the few who still need their road monsters for hauling

work materials, the only people who still drive SUVs in NW Chicagoland are inadequate men who are actually afraid to drive in the snow and "liberated" women who need to ride higher to really feel equal.;-)

[tanyev]

9. "I'm going to miss the Hummer much in the same way I'll miss Dick Cheney

when the Hellmouth swallows him home next year."

:rofl:

[carlyhippy]

10. if they are on their way out, good thing I just bought mine

If I had an Expedition or a Tahoe, I would probably be trying to get rid of it, but my xterra is fine, and will be even more appreciated in 4 months when there is 3 ft snow on the ground and I am trying to get to work.

Not always the SUV drivers who are running into little cars....last weekend a lady in a Toyota Corolla backed up from a parking space as I was on the street and driving past her, and missed the middle of my xterra by inches...she rolled down her window and said "oh sorry, I didn't see you", go figure.

[krabigirl]

13. Will it be the end of other gas-guzzling vehicles also? The end of non-guzzling SUVs?

Lame article. How about the BMW and Mercedes Sedans, not to mention sports cars, who use more gas than the lower-profile SUVs like Rav4s, CRVs, Xterras, etc?