Earth Equity News

Pickup Truck, SUV Sales Run Out of Gas. By Ken Bensinger, LATimes, June 4, 2008. "A month of gasoline prices near $4 a gallon was enough to sour Americans' long love affair with trucks and sport utility vehicles, pushing them back into sedans -- and driving Detroit's automakers into deeper trouble. U.S. sales results released Tuesday showed cars outselling gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs by almost 200,000 in May -- the biggest margin since 1996. That was bad news for U.S. automakers, whose lineups are heavily skewed toward large, inefficient vehicles, but a boon to their car-focused Asian rivals. General Motors posted a sales drop of about 27% from a year earlier and said it would close four truck plants, prepare its Hummer brand for a possible sale and focus on making smaller cars. Chrysler's 25.4% sales decline put it behind Honda in monthly sales for the first time... The fuel-efficient Honda Civic compact had a record month with 53,299 sold, a 38.5% increase from May 2007. It and other small cars including the Fit helped Honda, which sells very few light trucks and and is heavy with fuel-efficient cars, post a 15.6% increase in vehicles sold for the month."