SUV Sales Up… In London
Despite the fact that SUV are PC pariahs in The Land of Hope and Glory, despite the fact that unleaded costs $8.74 per gallon, SUV sales are up 11 percent on the year. Londoners are buying up SUVs faster than any other municipality. As London's roads haven't reverted to potholes and cobblestones, there must be some other way to logically explain this trend-defying headline. Are the expat Russian billionaires beefing-up their security entourages? Are conservatives celebrating the demise of Ken Livingstone and his $50/day C-charge plan? Is Clarkson on a Landie kick? Why is Old Blighty leading the Charge of the Light Truck Brigade while we here In The Land of the Free run for our Priora at first sign of $4 gas? Whatever the reason keep in mind that Britons consider things like the Daihatsu Terios an "SUV"– even though it sports a 1.5-liter engine and gets a combined 35mpg. Um, not that there's anything wrong with that…
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Are they US SUV's? Between the falling US dollar and the collapsed US SUV market, a Brit can pay for a lot of petrol with a huge saving in capital cost for the SUV. Even the RHD switch can't cost that much.
Does seem to be more of them on the market, and people definately don't have any more money over here. However, just recently, Ford launched the Kuga. I don't like SUVs usually (Chelsea Tractors), but I must admit I kinda like this one - and the 2.0l Diesel will probably get around 30-35mpg so could be tempting even though I have absolutely no need of a vehicle like that.
Without digging into the numbers, I suspect an 11% increase in London is about the same units as 0.5% in Dallas. 11% in a relatively tiny market is still small. And I don't think this really counts if we're talking BMW X3, VW Tiguan, or Landy LR2...all of which are nearly as economical as regular cars.
One possible explanation, spotted in the wild in an unrelated story in today's New York Times: "affluenza"