Even as new car sales have sunk like the Cleveland Browns, Americans took advantage of recent gas price declines to go out and buy (drum roll, please) more pickups and SUVs!!!!! Yeah!!!
Car sales fell some 32% over the last three months, but November sales saw a gas-guzzlers inching up, making up 14% of vehicle sales that month. That was up from barely 9% in May.
In contrast, compact car sales made up just 10% of the November sales scene, down from 16% in May.
Now lower gas prices are certainly part of the equation, but so are car dealers who are all but giving away their parking lots full of trucks. Not a day goes by when I don’t hear or see dealer ads all but begging consumers to buy something – anything.
Even last week, we saw gas here at $1.49 a gallon. There was an odd 30-cent jump over the weekend, before prices fell back to the $1.65 level.
Yesterday, OPEC ministers decided to remind us all that those pump prices are just unacceptable, announcing a two million barrel per day cut in production in hopes of bolstering prices, which had fallen well into the $40 range. Numerous other oil producing countries also announced production cuts. Surprise, surprise, surprise.
Will we see $4 a gallon gas again? Doubt it, but I hope you enjoyed our brief trip to yesteryear cause it will get back in the $2 range before too long.
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– Jim Smith
