Tiny SUVs become more popular recently | PandaCover

Most people like SUV because it?s excellent Sports Utility. Most early SUV is bigger than recently SUV. Does that mean smaller SVU become more popular at present? There is a shift under way in what Americans want from their everyday vehicles, and few new models illustrate that as clearly as the new Ford Escape hitting showrooms now.

The most popular SUVs are smaller and nimble, part of a class of vehicle referred to as compact crossovers.

These carlike wagons like the Escape, Honda Motor Co.?s (US:HMC) CR-V and Toyota Motor Corp.?s (US:TM) RAV 4 have attracted buyers with just enough roominess and luggage capacity, and without the gas guzzling or safety concerns of their big SUV brethren.

That is a significant change from 2001, when the Ford Escape first came on the market and was considered part of a niche class of vehicle sometimes belittled as ?cute utes.? Back then, the sport-utility-vehicle market belonged to large, rough-and-tumble 4x4s like the Ford Explorer, built on a pickup-truck chassis and weighing in at 4,100 pounds.

Now it is the gas-guzzling SUVs built on truck frames that have become the niche products.

Vehicles like the Escape, CR-V, RAV 4, Kia Sorrento, Chevrolet Equinox and a raft of other compact crossover wagons are the second- or third-largest category of vehicles in the U.S. market based on sales volume, depending on who?s counting. Last year, the outgoing Escape was the best-selling vehicle in the class.

?The traditional SUV is going by the wayside,? said Alexander Edwards, president of the automotive division of Strategic Vision, a San Diego, Calif., market-research firm. In 2006, small SUVs accounted for just 9% of the market, he said. Now they represent about 14% of all vehicles sold in the U.S.

Part of the appeal of the smaller crossovers lies in their sleeker, more carlike design?a shift from a decade ago when the rugged contours and genuine off-road capability of the big SUVs lured buyers away from family sedans.

Ford?s (US:F) rivals refined their crossovers into more carlike designs over the years, but the Escape until last year retained the squared-off grille and boxy rear end of its larger stable mate, the Explorer.

Jason Sprawka, the Escape brand manager said Ford Motor Co. dug into research that looked at why people didn?t want another Escape, and found that dated design was driving customers to rivals. ?We know CR-V and RAV4 customers in California rejected us? because of the old design, he said.

The new exterior design works for Terry Kraft of Norfolk, Va., who said he never liked the old model?s squared-off styling.?The two big considerations for me were technology and fuel economy,? said Kraft, A 53-year-old Navy officer, who has on order a well-equipped, all-wheel-drive Escape with a 2.0-liter engine and an infotainment system.

One risk for Ford: The new design, might strike buyers as looking an awful lot like what Ford?s rivals are already producing. It used to be a safe bet that a Honda or Toyota model would have better fuel economy than a competing Ford or Chevy. Not anymore.

(Resource: marketwatch.com, reprinted by www.thepandacover.com who offers SUV covers online. Here you can get SUV car cover for most makes and models. Welcome to order Ford car cover and other kinds of car cover from Panda Cover Store.)

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