In the past five years, there has been a shift in the automotive market that is showing that you might be more inclined to buy a different type of vehicle in the future. Over the course of automotive history, the vehicle that was built for the family to drive has been the most purchased. This vehicle is known as a sedan and it happens to have carried on as the most popular on the market, at least until now. The numbers over the past five years show us that you’re more likely to be one type of vehicle rather than a sedan today.
Let’s Look at the Numbers
The numbers from 2012 and through the first four months of 2017 show that a shift in loyalty rates have taken place. In 2012 the SUV market showed 53 percent of those that had purchased an SUV in the past would do so again. Today, that loyalty rate is 66 percent. This means that you are more likely to purchase an SUV than you would have in the past, which is putting the sedan market behind in the sales in the market, making SUVs more popular than ever.
When it comes to pickup trucks the rate of models purchased has increased in this category as well. For the 2017 year, the growth has gone from 43 percent in 2012 to 51 percent for this year. This is a significant increase in the market as well, making the purchase of one of these models more impressive and easier for us to have the capability and performance needed. What this means is we want to have vehicles that offer us the space for cargo and passengers making the models we drive more versatile than ever, but this shift in the market means a reduction somewhere else.
The sedan loyalty rate in 2012 was 56 percent which has fallen to 49 percent for 2017. This shows a huge decline in the market with the total difference in sales being nearly 300,000 purchases. This could mean that we see the first year in the history of the market that we have less than half of the sedan households that purchase the same type of vehicle. This is further proof and certainly a good reason for why we now see more vehicles on the market that are SUVs and pickup trucks.
Why do We Buy More SUVs?
We are purchasing more SUVs than ever because of the selection added to the market, lower gas prices over the past several years, increasingly better fuel mileage, and an improved economy in the US. These factors make it easier than ever for you to own an SUV and know you’re going to come back and pick out another one in a few years. In fact, over the next five years, the numbers are likely to be even more favorable for SUVs, causing sedans to continue to occupy a smaller and smaller segment of the vehicles that we purchase.
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