A Nice Compromise if You Need an SUV
The other day I was driving by a local gas station and found it funny that it was swimming in cars. Lineups stemmed from the station in every direction possible, with
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| Smaller more fuel efficient vehicles and long term high fuel costs could kill the large SUV as we know it. (Photo: Alexandra Straub, Canadian Auto Press) |
cars even extending onto the roadway. I laughed to myself and thought that if filling up the tank at 89.9 cents a liter is a bargain, what's next? Of course, laughing aside, with gas prices averaging 99.9 cents per liter the opportunity to save 10 cents a liter just might cause me to grab a good book and join the line up soon. That will be especially true if I keep getting SUVs as test vehicles. The recent surge in fuel costs must be causing some of the many sport utility owners to question their choice of transportation. Yet even with the astronomical (or should that be gastronomical) prices for fuel, trends of global warming and all the other threats to the environment, there seems to be more and more of them on the roads everyday.
But environmental issues aside, is this a bad thing? The booming SUV market has literally revived the declining automotive industry, keeping workers working and providing consumers and their families with safer vehicles overall (if you don't count
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| Fuel economy is becoming more and more of a factor when people are shopping for new vehicles. (Photo: Alexandra Straub, Canadian Auto Press) |
rollovers). But reports of some change in North American buying patterns to smaller, more fuel efficient vehicles could mean the long term high fuel costs could kill the large SUV as we know it. Why can't we bring back the good old days of price wars? It almost seems like ancient history to think that only a few years ago we could get a liter of regular for 29.9 cents, and only last year that I could get a liter of regular for 59.9 cents. But I suppose we might as well all just suck it up and take our punches on the jaw. With our various governments doubling the final price at the pump with taxes upon taxes and the OPEC nations hardly sympathetic to the North American cause, rising gas prices are likely here to stay.
