-Caveat Lector- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">
</A> -Cui Bono?-
>From USA Today
{{<Begin>}}
03/02/00- Updated 11:14 PM ET
SUVs bleeding at the gas pump
And small-car drivers are laughing all the way to the station
Sound off on rising gas prices
By Gary Strauss, USA TODAY
For anyone ever tormented by sport-utility vehicles that hog highways, swallow
parking spaces and guzzle gas, the sharp recent rise in gas prices is payback
time.
Revenge of the car nerds? Maybe.
"It's kind of nice to see that people who have no use for an SUV other than as
a commuting vehicle are getting stung," says John Ojalehto, an e-commerce
banking employee in Arlington, Va., who owns a gas-sipping Honda Prelude (22
mpg city/27 highway). "I can't remember a worse fad the past 10 years than this
gas-guzzling SUV frenzy."
The frenzy isn't likely to stop soon. For most consumers, the combination of a
strong economy and resilient stock market has cushioned the effect of higher
gas prices. Prices have risen 56% to a national average of $1.42
per gallon of regular vs. 90.7 cents a year ago. SUV lust among well-heeled soccer
moms, suburbanites and soft-collar workers remains as strong as the tough-sounding
nameplates they support.
Sales of SUVs in the United States rose 17% last month over February 1999 and also
outpaced the 12% gain in overall auto sales. This comes despite the fact that some of
the biggest SUVs get as little as 10 miles a gallon
in city driving.
The Ford Explorer (16 /21 mpg), long the top-selling sport-utility vehicle, outsold
all car brands. "You'd never know that gas prices were going up," says Frank McGovern,
salesman at Tom Peck Ford in Huntley, Ill., a subu
rb of Chicago where premium gas costs about $1.85 a gallon and $2 in the city.
Some SUV owners, however, have been driven to stealing gas. Shreveport, La., gas
station owner Al Carroll says two people in large SUVs drove off without paying for
$22 and $28 worth of gas.
Price be damned, the Walter Mitty in most of us appears to prefer machismo over mini.
So although most SUVs are used as little more than glorified stations wagons that
seldom tackle anything rougher than speed bumps, for
plenty of consumers just knowing that they can handle any Road Warrior situation can
be rationale for owning one.
But as the tab to fill up the largest SUVs climbs to $50 or more, consumers with
long-simmering SUV resentment are relishing the moment.
"Hopefully the gas prices will lessen the enthusiasm for those things," laughs
physicist John Mergenthaler, eyeing a Ford Explorer at a Shell station in Palo Alto,
Calif.
Says Louisville restaurateur Lynn Winter, who detests SUVs because their
elevated headlights are blinding: "All my friends have gone out and gotten
them. As far as I'm concerned, they can have them. The little guys are laughing
now." Winter drives a Toyota Avalon (21/29 mpg).
Little sympathy for the SUV driver
Among those also amused:
Paul Coss of Groton, Mass. "These Stupid Useless Vehicles are finally annoying
their owners as much as they've annoyed us," Coss says via cell phone as he
tools around in his Ford Taurus (20/28 mpg). "They're big and obnoxious, and a
lot of the people don't have a clue on how to drive them.
"We had a big snowstorm a week ago, and I was surprised at the number of SUVs
that were off the road."
Susan Romeo of Pasadena, Calif. "I drive a Honda Accord (22/31 mpg) and thank
God," says Romeo, marketing director for WestStart/CALSTART, a clean-air
technologies consortium. "I live in an area where there are a lot of SUVs, and
I hate them because there isn't any place to park.
"I'm going to smirk because now that you have to pay more, maybe you shouldn't
have these vehicles in the first place."
Michael Feinstein of Santa Monica, Calif. "People who think about environmental
and social values were laughed at for doing so in the past. Now they are the
ones who get the last laugh," says Feinstein, one of two Green Party members on
the Santa Monica City Council. He is called by cell phone from the 1970 VW bus
(mpg: who cares?) kept tuned for peak efficiency and driven just 2,500 miles a
year.
"I guess it's kind of fun for them to think they're getting revenge on us,"
says Quinn Thomas of Westminster, Calif., president of the 56-member Dirt
Devils four-wheel drive club. "But it would make me crazy being boxed in with a
little car."
Whatever the stance, talk of SUVs is no longer isolated cocktail party banter.
As one might expect, the Internet now is a clearinghouse for anti-SUV
sentiment. Jay Karolyi's parody Web site, The Ultimate Poseur Sport Utility
Page (http:/poseur.4x4.org), gets more than 15,000 hits a month.
"When you see one person driving a big one on the highway, it's rude, and
driving it is inefficient and just wasteful," says Karolyi, a high school
teacher in Chattanooga, Tenn., who drives a BMW 2002 (20/30 mpg).
Karolyi is convinced that Madison Avenue is the impetus behind the SUV craze.
"The advertisements are all about adventure and outdoors," he says. "But when
was the last time you saw one off-pavement?"
To be sure, Karolyi acknowledged that sport-utes are highly practical for those
who truly need power and traction to plow through snow, scamper up mountainous
roads or tow heavy loads. But as a suburban commuter vehicle? No, way, he says.
Many SUV owners who put their vehicles through tough paces don't care what
urban lightweights might say. Like Californian Thomas, they're defensive, but
not too much.
An 'extravagance' comes at a cost
Denver's Rich "Tex" Matteucci bought his 18-month old Chevy Tahoe (14/18 mpg)
for comfort and size. "It's somewhat of an extravagance," says Matteucci, 28.
"But I figured if I'm going to be in an accident, I want to be in the biggest
thing possible."
Matteucci feels the pinch of higher prices, though. He spent $40 to fill his
tank last week vs. $30 at Christmas. He gets about 12 miles per gallon, about a
third less than what he got in his prior vehicle, a Ford Ranger.
Does he miss the Ranger now? "A little bit, yeah," he says.
Iowa school teacher Darryl Landas says SUVs like his Ford Explorer are
virtually mandatory around his home in Decorah, a rural community near the
Minnesota border.
"There are nights when there's 3 feet of snow on the ground and you don't know
if you're getting home," he says. "Out here, four-wheel drive is definitely a
necessity. I doubt many people in the South would need it more than once a
millennium. There are those who really need an SUV and those whose ego needs
one."
Contributing: Earle Eldridge; Barbie Hansen; Kirsten Haukebo; William M. Welch;
Matt Baron in Chicago; Edward Iwata in Palo Alto, Calif.; and Gary Stoller in
Danbury, Conn.
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