Good Quote And Today's Stat

A two-fer today.

"This is the most dramatic shift I've seen in 30 years. Small cars are going through the roof. We can't find the ceiling with small cars, and we can't find the floor with big trucks." - Ford sales analyst George Pipas.

48%
The percentage of sales that trucks and large SUVs now constitute in the automobile market. That is down from 54% in 2004.

Before Mullaly took over FoMoCo, Bill Ford Jr. was running the company. I've unsuccessfully tried to find the quote in the past but he said, and I paraphrase, "No one could have predicted that gas prices would remain so high for so long."

Ahem!


There is a finite supply of crude oil and therefore a finite supply of gasoline. At some point, probably sooner rather than later, we're going to see prices rise dramatically and forever. To make it worse, you have the new Tata automobile hitting markets around the world.

Combine this cheap car with the improving financial situations of millions of people world wide that were once permanently poor and the demand for oil and gasoline is going to climb exponentially.

The high gas prices are a shock to many in the U.S. (it shouldn't have been) and for decades we've built our society around the concept of cheap gasoline. There are a lot of long term changes that we need to make. But at least at this point people are starting to buy cars that burn less gasoline. Even if prices fall temporarily in the future a lot of people will be "stuck" with these more efficient cars until they are paid off.