There are several trends that happen in the world around us and many of us are more than happy to fall in line and follow along with exactly what we want to be able to drive. We love to have the latest smartphone to use, the clothing that’s in style, although this seems to be a circular trend, and we have a specific way we buy cars and drive them. The trend for the American automotive market has always been to buy a small, cheap and efficient vehicle when gas prices go up and then to trade it in on the large boat hauling SUVs or trucks when gas prices drop again.
Right now, we are bucking that trend in a big way. The gas prices have been on a steady decline for a few years now and yet the sales of hybrid and EV models has increased as has the smaller vehicles that come at lower prices. If gas prices aren’t the cause of us going to the market for the larger vehicles what will make us want to buy these? Why are we shopping for more efficient models when the price of gasoline has dropped so significantly over the past few years?
While the fuel efficiency of vehicles on the road in America has steadily hovered at 25.3 mpg over the past three years, the vehicles we buy have been on a trend of being more efficient than ever. While we can still admire the large SUV models on the market, unless you need one of these big hulking beasts, the reality is, you might not even consider them an option and instead look to the smaller and more efficient vehicles for the ride you want so that you can get where you need to go as cheaply as possible.
With the prices of vehicles on the rise, we may have found our cause for the trend to smaller models that are more efficient. Not only can you buy a hybrid vehicle at a much lower price than a large family hauling SUV, but you can do so knowing you’ll be able to drive much farther on a tank of gasoline than with that big workhorse. While these behemoths do still have a place in our market and must be used to get things where they need to go, we can get farther and more efficiently with vehicles that are built to give us the most fuel mileage and have a system that backs up the gasoline power with electricity.
As we look for ways to have more efficiency and in some cases to lower the emissions and carbon footprint we leave behind, EV and hybrid models are the answers we seek. This may also be why manufacturers are looking for ways to use lighter materials and gain more out of the large SUVs and pickup trucks in regards to the efficiency of the powertrain. It’s a new day in the world of the American automotive market and we certainly can see the trend toward having excellent efficiency is part of what we enjoy on the roads in the future.
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