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Gold/Mining/Energy : Big Dog's Boom Boom Room -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bearcatbob who wrote (33303)	7/3/2004 2:29:31 PM
From: profile_14	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 206098

The problem is not inasmuch who makes the SUV, but what consumers want to buy. Americans always want to equate bigger with better. We are a society that is in love with the automobile and has been for a long time. It is a status symbol to say I drive this or that, or that you have a new vehicle every so often. The SUV came about because men did not want to drive minivans. Neither did women. So when they started dressing up the Jeeps and making a Cherokee Unlimited 15 years or so ago, the darn things sold like hot cakes, no matter where you set the price. Others picked up on the idea and now you have a minivan disguised as an SUV, but a truck derivative instead of a car derivative. The Suburban was a huge truck, but when that got trimmed up inside, it became acceptable to a greater number of people. Those things (SUVs) are trucks dressed up as cars. For the most part, it is a way to get around comfortably, with power, and ego to match, and that is where all the profit margins are coming from for the automakers. Economically it will never make sense unless you are hauling a lot of stuff that requires the power of a truck, which, let's face it, a minor fraction of SUV owners do. However, until gas prices rise to the point where one questions if they really need to haul 6000 pounds of steel around the shopping center, people will keep on buying them. Because of the import quotas on foreign cars, foreign automakers import the highest priced vehicles where the margins are greatest. But at the end of the day, you can legislate all you want, tax all you want. Without a level playing field (i.e., a price of gasoline that is higher and comparable to that of the rest of the world), the American consumer has no incentive to be eco-friendly with their vehicles. That price of gas is why others in the rest of the world do not drive gas guzzlers like we do. The other part of the equation is that they also make less money than we do. At the end of the day, the UAW does not care what cars you make as long as you are employed. It is the management in change from one set of models to another set of more fuel efficient models that makes the transition challenging. Because the Big 3 do not anticipate the markets very well, they usually react and fight everything tooth and nail because it is to darn expensive to change platforms, engines, stampings, etc. They just don't want to lose more market share.