"Crossovers" Are the Biggest Segment of Sales
Consumer demand for crossover utility vehicles (CUVs) continues to rise, with crossovers now representing one out of every four autos sold in the U.S. CUVs have popular attributes of an SUV but are built on car platforms. In 2002, crossovers represented 7.7% of sales, rising to 24.6% in 2011. SUVs, by contrast, were about 18% of sales in 2002, falling to about 8% of sales today.
2011 vs. 2010 Sales Trends: Most Segments Are Up
Across the board, auto sales increased 10.2% in 2011. There are eight different segments of the passenger car and light truck auto sales market, and seven of those segments were up year-to-year in 2011. In fact, the sport utility vehicle (SUV) segment led all others with a nearly 25 percent increase over SUV sales the year before. Consumer demand for luxury cars, small cars, pickup trucks and crossover utility vehicles (CUVs) all had double-digit percentage increases from the year before. Only consumer demand for large cars was down – nearly 30 percent – from 2010; however, large cars are a small percentage of the market, so the actual drop was from 2.9% of sales in 2010 to 1.9% in 2011.
Unit Sales and Percentage Change: 2010 and 2011
