No surprise with this news.

I'm sure someone will lash out at Toyota, too, any minute now.

One more thing: don't blame the auto industry for building excessive numbers of SUVs and pick-up trucks if that is what consumers demand. These vehicles also deliver high profit margins, increasing the incentive to produce and market them. After all, Toyota, GM, Ford, DCX and others (are trying to) run for-profit enterprises, not charities. Nevertheless, it is the customer who is king.

If sales of these vehicles increase again, consumers have only themselves to blame. Inevitably, this will contribute to yet greater dependence on OPEC oil, higher GHG emissions and higher prices at the pump. Coincidentally, it may help the US auto industry stay afloat in the short term. However, for the long term health of US energy security, the global climate as well as the US auto industry, high fuel economy should remain a top purchasing criterion for prospective carbuyers.

The focus should be making the PU/SUV get 40mpg and run on a renewable fuel source. Not, forcing people to buy small cars that don't match their needs.

Perhaps now that GM and Ford have cut labor costs and excess capacity, they can reliably build Class B and C cars for a profit (Subcompact and compact cars).
_
Rafael Seidl,
While it is true that what the customer demands drives the market, GM should have leveraged their European and other overseas operations to hedge against the rising energy prices. Even if the fuel prices had not risen, there are advantages that would have resulted from such decisions, such as better ability to hold off Asian imports in the N.A. market. The same would be true, though to a smaller degree, for Ford.
_The Big 3 were tunnel visioned with high margin light trucks and SUV. This was in part due to the strategy to let the Japanese take the lower margin market for small and efficient cars. They would put up a fight in the large, performance, and luxury car segments, but the big profits would roll in from SUV and light trucks. A good strategy always has a good backup plan, or at least the beginnings for a rapid repositioning of their company (as rapid massive companies like GM can move). They did not hedge, and thus they took a punch in the solar plexus when gas prices rose above $2.50, then above $3.00. The upper management of the bureaucracy that is GM is also risk adverse, and WILL NOT DO ANYTHING THAT HAS ANY RISK OF DAMAGING THEIR RISE UP THE CORPRATE LADDER. The results were mediocre designs, and less emphasis on fuel efficiency. Some of hierarchy got the message after Katrina in 2005, but how carefully did they listen, and how fast can they turn it around is not likely to be clear until 2007. We have seen some of the renewed urgency amongst the Big 3 this year. However, these were in the pipeline for some time (3-6 years). Hence, real results may not appear until 2008, possibly even not fully unveiled until beyond 2010.
_Will they become smaller, but leaner and more profitable, of will the carmakers from Asia eat their lunch? It will be an interesting 5 years as we watch GM and Ford fight for their lives. DaimlerChrysler might join them as well, if Dr. Z does not help Chrysler around with technology they can draw from in their European operations/subsidiaries. How will they continue to weather their dropping market share, remains to be seen.

"The focus should be making the PU/SUV get 40mpg and run on a renewable fuel source. Not, forcing people to buy small cars that don't match their needs."

Probably 5% of light truck buyers have a true need for one - and that's being generous.

"Probably 5% of light truck buyers have a true need for one - and that's being generous."

-------------
No, thats not being generous. Since far more then 20% of them are used for work/business that does not fly. Half the truck owners I know use them for work, and all of the pickup owners I know use them for hauling wood or towing.
I only know one SUV owner who does not use his SUV for anything specific. The only common thread.... almost all of them have BIGGER light trucks then they probobly need.

Since far more then 20% of them are used for work/business that does not fly. Half the truck owners I know use them for work, and all of the pickup owners I know use them for hauling wood or towing. I only know one SUV owner who does not use his SUV for anything specific. The only common thread.... almost all of them have BIGGER light trucks then they probobly need.

Anecdotal fallacy.

Which makes your 5% guess the fallacy.

Are you kidding? What exactly do you think your statistic is supposed to indicate? Percentage of light truck sales to fleets are sold to businesses? And? That doesn't say what percentage of light truck sales are fleet sales, nor how those light trucks are used in business fleets.

In sum, your statistic means nothing.

The question is the NEED for a light truck, and what percentage of the ones sold are actually because they're needed.

PS- its not my statistic, its the DOE's statistic.

Gee, I didn't realize that. Are we going to have a semantic showdown?

How about "THAT statistic is meaningless." Does that work for you?

PS - It's actually ORNL's statistic, which they originally source from the Automotive Fleet Factbook if you want to get hypertechnical about it.

Go to the dept. of revenue listings for every state and they typically list car registrations by classification. Then you can find out how many trucks are registered by businesses or for commercial use and how many are registered for personal use. I'm not about to go to such great lengths though as I just finished doing that for something else.

I have to say, I think that you have been completely outclassed by hampden wireless’ logic.

Oh, absolutely. What's more logical than to look up percentage of light truck fleet sales to business when the topic is how much light trucks are actually needed? And the great logic of quibbling over petty, non-topical semantics is also very logical and indicative of a strong argument. You're so right, Bret.

I mean you quoted a reliably [sic] statistic that then requires an additional inference to understand that more than 5% of light truck users actually use these vehicles for there [sic] intended purposes.

There's some more iron-clad logic.

However, Hampden has rallied around a figure that has no basis and was pulled directly out of fyi co2’s rear.

One accurate statement after another from you, Bret. I'm the one who threw that number out, not fyico2. Nice butt reference, too - another sign of an iron-clad, logical argument.

Yep Hampden really got you on this one.

Oh, did "he"?

I'll refer you now to the 2002 Vehicle Inventory and Use Survey.

http://www.census.gov/prod/ec02/ec02tv-us.pdf

This will require you to think a little bit, so don't be scared.

Go to page 57 of the report and you'll see a chart entitled "Truck Miles Distribution by Operational Characteristics". Since the data in Column B excludes pickups, minivans, other light vans, and sport utilities, simply subtract the amount from Column B from the total for all trucks in Column A to get the amount for light trucks.

Next you'll want to look at two rows - one entitled "No trailer pulled" in the section on "TRAILER CONFIGURATION" and the other "Off the road" in the section on "RANGE OF OPERATION".

This is what you'll find.

Total miles = 969,555,500,000
No trailer pulled = 935,846,100,000
Ergo, trailer pulled = 33,709,400,000, or 3.5% of total miles
Off the road = 12,401,400,000, or 1.3% of total miles

Assuming there's no overlap between those two uses (ie, towing and off-roading simultaneously), you get this:

Trailer pulling + off-roading = 3.5% + 1.3% = 4.8%

Wow. Looks like what I "pulled out of my rear" came really darn close to what the actual numbers are.

Yeah, that Hampden sure crushed me with his "logic".

Thanks for your comments, Bret.

barnaby,

I'd add 6 person and 7 or more person households. Other than vans (small market share) I don't know of any passenger vehicles which will hold more than 5 people. Granted that is still a small percentage (4.3%)

4.8% for trailer and off-road use (following your assumptions) doesn't quite clarify the entirety of actual need for a truck. Really you should go down the list of products transported and subtract B from A. It comes out to something like 189,345,800,000 miles and using the above 969,555,500,000 miles figure from above that gives roughly 19.5% of the light duty truck miles are from transporting goods (hazardous and non-hazardous). I could have fumbled through a few numbers as I did it quickly and there are a lot of numbers there but that should be fairly accurate.