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The SUV Is Dethroned
Wired's Autopia blog documents what we all knew was coming: rising gas prices have killed off the SUV. Auto industry watchers had predicted that the gas guzzlers in the "light truck" category would lose the ascendancy by 2010; no one expected their reign to end in a month, in the spring of 2008. Toyota, GM, Ford, and now Nissan have announced they will scale back truck and SUV production and ramp up that of smaller passenger cars. Of course there will always be a market for this class of vehicle, but its days on the top of the sales charts are done. "'All of our previous assumptions on the full-size pickup truck segment are off the table,' Bob Carter, Toyota division sales chief said last week during a conference call with reporters. Translation — we have no idea how low they'll go."
Hmm, funny I'm in a contract to pay for the truck, I probably wouldn't care as much if I wasn't upside down, but when I bought it gas was much cheaper and I carpooled. I guess stuff like contracts don't matter in your world though.
And I don't get the house thing, I don't own a house and live 100 yards from a bus stop and I own a second car that gets 35 MPG. But I'm glad you find other peoples financial distresses fun. Like I said, don't say I didn't honk.
Big Wet Sloppy Kisses Very original. XOXOXO
Lovely. You fantasize about killing "hot rod kids" in Civics.
First against wall, etc.
Bah! I used the last of my mod points up this morning. Someone mod parent up. I never made the connection between dickheads on bikes and dickheads in SUVs. With any luck I will now no longer have to swerve my 1 1/2 ton truck off the road every time some guy in SUV comes along and expects me and my useful vehicle to get out of his way. =P
For someone to sit there and gloat about someone being easily murdered by an unnecessarily large vehicle I think is screwed up.
Except the first is reality, and the second is an obviously sarcastic statement not meant to be taken literally.
~S
I agree completely. The value of those SUV's, after this announcement, have definitely gone south. I don't feel sorry for those owners at all. They've know for years that this time was coming. What's funny and sad, even with high gas prices, I'm still seeing new SUV purchases. What's sad is that most SUV drivers could care less that they are killing the earth.
Mod this guy up. I've got an SUV, fuck you! It snows a Hell of a lot here in Michigan. I have dogs and go camping in rough terrain. Besides it gets 20 MPG, about 2 miles less than my Ford Taurus.
I hate ethics, I avoid them on principle.
Delusion: Thinking you know who's online.
I am a name troll of Westlake. Visit my homepage to learn why.
Don't bother putting so much effort into arguing. They guy won't even reply. The people that argue against trucks are dogmatic in their views and there's nothing you can do to change them.
I argued once with a guy who wanted a Prius, telling him its a bad investment. I told him financially it makes no sense and the only reason to get one is if it provides you with piece of mind - not that you using 30% less fuel than a compact car is going to make any impact - but whatever. If it makes him feel it does fine, then get a Prius. He got all huffy to this saying how can it not save him money on gas, its a good buy etc. It was all rhetoric without any facts, just buzzwords and propaganda. I posted a lengthy rebuttal using actual numbers to show that if you get a Prius over a similar sized regular car, it will take someone over 15 years to actually break even on the increased initial investment of the Prius. Furthermore, if someone were to take the initial price difference and invest it at a moderate 4% interest rate, they would actually pay off the yearly gas difference between the Prius and the compact gasoline car. To put it another way, the Prius owner puts up a lot more principal to get a return of $500 a year, only he never sees that principal. The point is at the end of 15 years the Prius has finally equal to the small car, but the owner with the small car also has that invested principal too - since it was in a bank and not used towards the price of the car! In the end it makes no financial sense to get one unless the price of gas were significantly higher or the cost of the Prius were much closer to a regular gasoline car. (I could write out all the numbers and exactly what I mean, but I'm just this this to illustrate my point.)
Anyway, after making this point with irrefutable numbers - you know actually working stuff out before I make an investment of $25k he never responded to me. He responded to other people in the thread, mostly just jerking each other off about how great the Prius is, but ignored my reply to his statement. For people who pride themselves on being intellectuals and open-minded it seems whenever something like this comes up logic goes out the window and everyone just gets passionate about owning economically stupid vehicles and how not doing so equates to raping the environment etc.
So yeah, don't even bother, just sit secure in the knowledge that they're wasting their money on stupid shit and driving tiny cars cause they don't know better.
I do not care what law says. Every law could be abused. I have no respect who put individual whims over public interest whether they are covered by stupid laws or not.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.