, Columnist
Detroit Has Had It With Cars
General Motors joins Ford and Fiat Chrysler in planning for a future in which everybody buys SUVs and pickups. Is that smart?
Walking away.
Photographer: Spencer Platt/Getty Images
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Americans don’t buy cars anymore. They buy SUVs and pickups.
OK, that isn’t strictly true: Sedans, station wagons, hatchbacks and the like were selling at a 5.5 million-vehicle annual rate in October. But that’s half the pace of three decades ago. The U.S. motor vehicle market has come to be dominated by sport utility vehicles and pickups to an extent never before seen.