The Business Ethics Blog

(Further to yesterday’s posting on SUV’s & safety…)

Apparently, even if people aren’t deterred from buying SUV’s by the big vehicles’ manifestly anti-social qualities, nor by safety considerations, nor by environmental considerations, we can still count on people to respond to basic economic incentives like a few cents’ difference in the price of gas.
See this story in today’s New York Times: A Comeback for the Car Species

Last year will go down as the one when cars made a comeback and sport utilities stumbled.

For cars, long overshadowed by hefty pickups and powerful S.U.V.’s, the share of the American market climbed for the first time since 1992, according to figures from the automobile companies. Cars picked up about one percentage point, giving them 45.1 percent of the market, their largest share in two years.

“Cheap fuel in America is a thing of the past,” said James Press, president for sales operations for Toyota in the United States. “There’s a lot more awareness of the impact of a gallon of gasoline.”