I’ve been saying two things for quite a while now: 1) Lower gas prices will kill the “retooling” efforts of GM, Ford, and Chrysler and 2) We, the American People, never learn.  These two statements go hand-in-hand really.  Since gas prices have dropped it seems that the cars Americans are buying, when they do buy, more SUVs and trucks as opposed to those small cars that were so highly touted in recent months.  GM execs are even talking about the destructive nature of this change in thinking according to chron.com:

“Gasoline prices “are completely messing it up,” Lutz said today in a Bloomberg interview, referring to demand for small vehicles. “Nobody wants them.”

His comments reflect the swing back to pickups, sport- utility vehicles and vans at the end of 2008. The light trucks accounted for about 52 percent of vehicles sold in the U.S. in each of last year’s final two months, as gasoline tumbled to $1.62 a gallon from its $4.11 peak on July 15. For the year, cars outsold light trucks for the first time since 2000.”

So what does this say about the American consumer?  Something I have been saying all along: we never learn.  Now that gas has dropped a few bucks we are off again buying the biggest and least fuel efficient cars possible.  Who is living on the moon under a rock blindfolded with their fingers in their ears (to quote the Simpsons) long enough to think these gas prices are long term?  It is amazing how everything is working against our economy and our dead-in-the-water car makers right now!

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