RIP: Symbol of Eco-Defiance Is a Goner

Top picture is crushed EV1's.
Some recently published quotes:

“I think G.M. is basically declaring the S.U.V. dead,” the New York Times quoted John Casesa, managing partner of the auto consulting firm Casesa Shapiro Group in New York.

"They're dinosaurs. Put a fork in them," Erich Merkle, vice president of auto industry forecasting for the consulting company IRN Inc. in Grand Rapids, Mich., said in an interview.

The shift from trucks to cars this year was so rapid that Ford and GM executives view it as permanent. Both GM and Ford recently announced huge production cuts and plans to crank out more cars even as U.S. automakers, and even Toyota Motor Corp., continue to see their sales drop.

Webb's figures show wholesale prices on big SUVs such as Chevrolet Tahoes, Ford Expeditions and Toyota Sequoias are down 17% from a year ago. Full-size pickups have fallen as much as 15%, Webb says.

With gas at $4 a gallon and counting, no one’s really interested in SUVs that “get 15 miles per gallon downhill with a tail wind.”

"It's a challenge," says Adam Lee, president of the Lee Auto Malls dealerships in Maine. "How do you tell a good customer, 'You paid $32,000 and now it's only worth $17,000?' "

It is unfortunate that while G.M. puts the final nail in the coffin of many of its S.U.V.’s, it cannot replace those lost jobs with increased production of smaller greener vehicles. Too bad G.M. killed its own electric vehicle, EV1, years ago.