Monday, May 4, 2015

Truckin'

Here's another little piece of fallout from the drop in gas prices: General Motors said the average price paid for one of its vehicles in April reached $34,750, up $880 from the year earlier. GM’s upscale GMC Denali truck and SUV lineup represented nearly a quarter of the brand’s sales in April, a record high. Pickups and SUVs are generally far more profitable for the industry than passenger cars.

Gas prices are still down by more than a dollar a gallon from a year ago, making it easier to fill up the tank on one of those bigger vehicles. That class of vehicle notched 54 percent of April U.S. sales, three percentage points higher than a year ago.
 
On top of that, the automakers have been focusing on giving them better fuel economy. Light trucks are now averaging 21.7 miles per gallon, a 13 percent improvement over 2010, according to researcher WardsAuto.com. The most-efficient version of Ford’s Explorer SUV now gets 28 mpg on the highway, compared with the 21 mpg for the Explorer of 2005.

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