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Car-based SUVs rapidly climbing sales chart
Wed Jan 7,11:27 AM ET Add Top Stories - Chicago Tribune to My Yahoo!
By Rick Popely and Jim Mateja, Tribune staff reporters
DETROIT -- Americans still love sport-utility vehicles, but their ardor is turning more to car-based models than the truck-based off-road vehicles that dominated the 1990s.
"The handwriting is on the wall, and 2003 is the first year there is a noticeable decline in sales of traditional SUVs," said George Pipas, Ford Motor Co.'s sales analyst. "They won't go away overnight, but, by the end of the decade, the crossovers will probably outsell the traditional sport-utility vehicles."
SUV sales grew to a record 4.5 million last year, about 300,000 more than in 2002 and 27 percent of the (16.7 million) new vehicles purchased. That was despite a 4 percent sales decline, to 2.8 million, in truck-based models such as the Ford Explorer, Chevrolet Tahoe and Mitsubishi Montero.
Meanwhile, sales of car-based "crossover" models such as the Ford Escape, Nissan Murano and Toyota Highlander rose 35 percent, to nearly 1.7 million vehicles. Sales of crossovers, which tend to be smaller, lighter and somewhat more fuel efficient, have increased more than 500 percent since 1999.
Among crossovers unveiled at a preview for the Detroit auto show, which opens Saturday, were the 2005 Ford Freestyle, the Mercedes-Benz Grand Sports Tourer and the 2007 Lincoln Aviator. The current Aviator is a version of the Explorer, but the '07 model will be based on a car platform and styled like an SUV.
For consumers, crossovers provide the popular SUV look and security of all-wheel-drive in a more manageable size with more comfortable ride.
Pipas said the shift to car-based SUVs is being led by Baby Boomers, who fueled the growth of truck-based SUVs in the 1990s.
"It's because the Baby Boomers are older, and more are empty nesters. The kids have left the house, and they don't need the same passenger and cargo capability as when the children were at home," Pipas said.
However, they still may want more room and flexibility than most passenger cars provide, making a crossover a logical choice over a larger SUV.
"They don't have to step up as high to get into a crossover. They're more posterior friendly," he said.
The rugged, go-anywhere image of the truck-based SUVs sold well in the 1990s, but Paul Taylor, chief economist for the National Automobile Dealers Association, said the car-like qualities of crossovers are more in tune with what most Americans need.
"They're matching the style of the SUV with their actual lifestyle," Taylor said. "Typically, the most challenging assignment for these vehicles is a gravel road. You don't need a truck-based sport-utility to get through that."
For automakers, crossovers use the same vehicle platform, or architecture, as sedans and can be built on the same assembly line, reducing engineering and manufacturing costs. The Murano, for example, is related to the Altima sedan, and both are built at Nissan's Smyrna, Tenn., plant.
Ford will use the same approach with the Freestyle, which shares its platform with the Ford Five Hundred sedan. They will be built at Ford's Torrence Avenue assembly plant on Chicago's South Side beginning next summer.
Ford is counting on the Freestyle to pick up the slack from falling sales of the Explorer, which slipped 14 percent last year to 373,118. Ford sold 434,000 in 2002 and a record 445,000 in 2000, but Pipas says the Explorer won't reach those levels again.
"We're done setting records with the Explorer. Traditional SUVs have seen their best days," he said. "We're not writing the obituary for the Explorer. We're just not going to be selling 400,000 per year."
Next summer Ford will eliminate one shift at the St. Louis assembly plant that builds the Explorer and the similar Mercury Mountaineer and Aviator, reducing capacity for those models by about 100,000.
Around the same time, Ford will begin building the car-based Freestyle. Ford plans to build about 100,000 Freestyles per year initially and will add more if there is demand.
Ford boosted production capacity of the car-based Escape last year by 50,000, and sales grew 15 percent to a record 168,000.
General Motors has not reduced capacity of its truck-based SUVs, but it is adding the crossover Chevrolet Equinox this spring. GM will try to juice up sales of its mini-vans next fall by styling them to look like SUVs and calling them "crossover sport vans."
Taylor sees continued demand for truck-based models from consumers who want the size and brawn for heavy lifting and towing, but crossovers will fuel growth in the SUV segment.
"Traditional SUVs are not going away soon. They simply are not growing any more," he said
Car-based SUVs rapidly climbing sales chart
Wed Jan 7,11:27 AM ET Add Top Stories - Chicago Tribune to My Yahoo!
By Rick Popely and Jim Mateja, Tribune staff reporters
DETROIT -- Americans still love sport-utility vehicles, but their ardor is turning more to car-based models than the truck-based off-road vehicles that dominated the 1990s.
"The handwriting is on the wall, and 2003 is the first year there is a noticeable decline in sales of traditional SUVs," said George Pipas, Ford Motor Co.'s sales analyst. "They won't go away overnight, but, by the end of the decade, the crossovers will probably outsell the traditional sport-utility vehicles."
SUV sales grew to a record 4.5 million last year, about 300,000 more than in 2002 and 27 percent of the (16.7 million) new vehicles purchased. That was despite a 4 percent sales decline, to 2.8 million, in truck-based models such as the Ford Explorer, Chevrolet Tahoe and Mitsubishi Montero.
Meanwhile, sales of car-based "crossover" models such as the Ford Escape, Nissan Murano and Toyota Highlander rose 35 percent, to nearly 1.7 million vehicles. Sales of crossovers, which tend to be smaller, lighter and somewhat more fuel efficient, have increased more than 500 percent since 1999.
Among crossovers unveiled at a preview for the Detroit auto show, which opens Saturday, were the 2005 Ford Freestyle, the Mercedes-Benz Grand Sports Tourer and the 2007 Lincoln Aviator. The current Aviator is a version of the Explorer, but the '07 model will be based on a car platform and styled like an SUV.
For consumers, crossovers provide the popular SUV look and security of all-wheel-drive in a more manageable size with more comfortable ride.
Pipas said the shift to car-based SUVs is being led by Baby Boomers, who fueled the growth of truck-based SUVs in the 1990s.
"It's because the Baby Boomers are older, and more are empty nesters. The kids have left the house, and they don't need the same passenger and cargo capability as when the children were at home," Pipas said.
However, they still may want more room and flexibility than most passenger cars provide, making a crossover a logical choice over a larger SUV.
"They don't have to step up as high to get into a crossover. They're more posterior friendly," he said.
The rugged, go-anywhere image of the truck-based SUVs sold well in the 1990s, but Paul Taylor, chief economist for the National Automobile Dealers Association, said the car-like qualities of crossovers are more in tune with what most Americans need.
"They're matching the style of the SUV with their actual lifestyle," Taylor said. "Typically, the most challenging assignment for these vehicles is a gravel road. You don't need a truck-based sport-utility to get through that."
For automakers, crossovers use the same vehicle platform, or architecture, as sedans and can be built on the same assembly line, reducing engineering and manufacturing costs. The Murano, for example, is related to the Altima sedan, and both are built at Nissan's Smyrna, Tenn., plant.
Ford will use the same approach with the Freestyle, which shares its platform with the Ford Five Hundred sedan. They will be built at Ford's Torrence Avenue assembly plant on Chicago's South Side beginning next summer.
Ford is counting on the Freestyle to pick up the slack from falling sales of the Explorer, which slipped 14 percent last year to 373,118. Ford sold 434,000 in 2002 and a record 445,000 in 2000, but Pipas says the Explorer won't reach those levels again.
"We're done setting records with the Explorer. Traditional SUVs have seen their best days," he said. "We're not writing the obituary for the Explorer. We're just not going to be selling 400,000 per year."
Next summer Ford will eliminate one shift at the St. Louis assembly plant that builds the Explorer and the similar Mercury Mountaineer and Aviator, reducing capacity for those models by about 100,000.
Around the same time, Ford will begin building the car-based Freestyle. Ford plans to build about 100,000 Freestyles per year initially and will add more if there is demand.
Ford boosted production capacity of the car-based Escape last year by 50,000, and sales grew 15 percent to a record 168,000.
General Motors has not reduced capacity of its truck-based SUVs, but it is adding the crossover Chevrolet Equinox this spring. GM will try to juice up sales of its mini-vans next fall by styling them to look like SUVs and calling them "crossover sport vans."
Taylor sees continued demand for truck-based models from consumers who want the size and brawn for heavy lifting and towing, but crossovers will fuel growth in the SUV segment.
"Traditional SUVs are not going away soon. They simply are not growing any more," he said
