I’m not sure if you’ve noticed yet, but gasoline is getting pretty pricey. The average fuel economy of cars on American roads has steadily risen across the last few decades, with 2024 posting a new record high of 27.2 miles per gallon, and California posting the best numbers in the nation at 33.5 miles per gallon. But as the price of fuel doubles or triples while war in the middle east senselessly rages on, perhaps this is a time for Americans to look inward, to their own garages, and determine how they’ll make changes in their buying preferences to help maintain their pocketbooks in times of unprecedented international economic struggle.
If it weren’t for the XJ-generation Jeep Cherokee’s introduction in 1983, maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess at all. AMC wasn’t the first automaker to use a loophole to avoid emissions or fuel economy regulations, but it certainly wouldn’t be the last, and automaker lobbyists have been pushing that hole open wider with every passing year. SUVs now account for over 60% of new vehicle registrations in the US market.
Young punks don’t like driving the same vehicles that their parents drove. This was evident when drivers embraced the minivan as the anti-station wagon in the 1980s and 90s, and again when SUVs rose to prominence in the 2000s in an effort to get away from the uncoolness of minivans. So what’s coming next?
Let’s say you have the ability to select what the next trend in consumer car buying culture might be. You’re car god for a day or something. What is your pick for the next trend to follow SUVs? Drop your suggestion in the comments below, and later this week we’ll pick a few of our favorites to showcase.
It’s wagon time, baby!
Time is a flat circle and all that, I think we’re looking at a new renaissance of station wagons! And not just any wagons, this is the era of fast wagons. I hope the future holds a lower center of gravity, a lower coefficient of drag, and a lower pedestrian impact to not only save fuel but also to save lives. Wagons are the fun that SUVs wish they could be. A wagon is an SUV that doesn’t have to compensate for its tall suspension. You can have better tires, better suspension setups, more nimble handling, better steering, and a less powerful engine to go just as quickly. There is literally no downside to a wagon.
Everyone is in a terrible mood all the time, and driving big plodding greyscale blobs in bumper-to-bumper traffic has a lot to do with that, if you ask me. Instead of commuting to work in a GMC Yukon, you could have a nicer experience in a Volvo V60 or something for the same price with lower operating costs. Wagons have similarly sized cargo areas to SUVs, but with lower load floors making your Home Depot haul even easier to get loaded and home.
We’ve been conditioned by automakers to say “Oh, they can’t make that as a wagon because it won’t be profitable and nobody will buy it.” Well, I think it’s time we stop buying their propaganda! Automakers can turn a profit on anything they build and sell, they just choose put all of their efforts into SUVs because that’s what is most profitable and what skirts the CAFE standards loopholes the best. We don’t buy SUVs because we want them, we buy them because that’s what they choose to spend ad dollars on!
We, the people, must demand wagons!
