Splicetoday

Politics & Media
May 22, 2008, 07:00AM

Get With It People

SUV sales are down, but not down enough considering America's embarassing lack of progress in reducing fuel consumption. That's bad for one of our highest profile businesses, American automakers, but they won't change until consumer habits do. Can the government do more to break our habit of driving the largest trucks we can afford?

"One of my friends bought a new car last year, and she had wanted a sport utility vehicle from the moment she began looking for cars. She enjoyed the feeling of the safety she felt when she drove her sister’s Ford Explorer, so she went out and got herself an SUV. Now, she is driving a gas-guzzling machine that no one wants to take off her hands.

People need an incentive to get rid of the inefficient SUVs or cars they already have, and car dealerships need an incentive to buy them. The government needs to offer some kind of assistance to keep car dealerships in business if they agree to accept more SUVs so consumers can purchase more fuel-efficient cars. Then, can we just scrap those SUVs all together and recycle them to make fuel-efficient cars? That’d be great.

Especially with our shaky economic status, U.S. automakers need to step up their game. It’s not that people don’t want to buy new cars; it’s that the best products are being developed elsewhere.

READ MORE

Discussion

Register or Login to leave a comment