Data shows SUVs favored by car buyers
- Source: CE.cn
- [09:03 December 23 2010]
- Comments
The just-released statistics show that from January to October, in the passenger car market, SUVs (sports utility vehicles) grew fastest, up to 82.94 percent. The insiders of this field believe that this vehicle model always loved by part of consumers may have a promising future in Chinese market.
This year, SUVs' performance keeps heating up with the total production and sales volume of more than 100 million, accounting for nearly 10% of the entire passenger car market, which has always been around 5% in the past. When other sorts of passenger cars tended to have steady sales in October, many SUV consumers were holding money and waiting. Audi Q7 was out of stock; Tiguan of Shanghai Volkswagen sold 10,000 units per month; The demands for Dongfeng Honda's CR-V exceeded the supply for a few years and it still sells good; Benz GLK, BMW X5, QASHQAI of Dongfeng Nissan, Highlander of Guangzhou Automobile Toyota, Kia Sorento, Renault Koleos and many other models are passionately adored by consumers.
SUV is hot. With the economic development, improvement of people's living standards and change of lifestyle, as well as the growth of income, improvement of roads and popularity of drive travel, people love more and more to drive their cars and go to the nature together with friends and family, away from the noisy city and intense work, to relax there pressures and experience their limits. But people have misunderstanding then: they often confuse SUV with off-road vehicles, some even drive SUV on the extremely complex and dangerous roads which appear to be excessive demands to SUV. In fact, SUV sold in the current market are mostly designed for city roads and common rural roads. Their operating and passing performance are improved basically through the adjustment of power system, driving pattern, suspension and wheelbase, as well as equipped with large-size wide tires, therefore they can be called multi-functional model, but can't be substitute for off-road vehicles.
Off-road vehicle, a model of passenger vehicle adapting to all sorts of roads and environment, born 70 years ago, known as jeep at that time, was firstly produced by Willis Motor Company and Ford Motor Company. Later with its property right going through many changes, it was finally purchased by Chrysler Motors. Then Chrysler became the creator of SUV which have some similar features of off-road vehicle. Today, there are only a few models of off-road vehicles in the market including "Wrangler" and "Cherokee" of Chrysler, British "Land Rover", Toyota "Land Cruiser", "Prado," Mitsubishi "Pajero" and Suzuki's "Jimny" etc.
One clear trend for SUV demand is that people prefer SUV which is able to adapt to all the roads and has strong ability of crossing the country as well as the comfortable features like sedan. However, strong ability of crossing the country means the increase of power definitely and enhancement of rigidity, as a result, an increase of weight and reduction of fuel efficiency. This is one of the bottlenecks for the development of SUV. The current SUV products mostly have a displacement of around 2.4L, so their power and ability of crossing the country decide that they are not good at driving on the complex roads.
Recently, Chrysler launched the fourth generation of brand new big "Cherokee", as a high-end SUV, which can not only drive on all sorts of roads and have passing ability in all environment like off-road vehicles, but also provides comfort like sedan, has high-tech equipments and adaptability to the roads. This model no matter with displacement of 3.6L or 5.7L is equipped with energy-saving engine with better fuel efficiency. Simply speaking, the new Cherokee has the ability of crossing the country no worse than any off-road vehicles, but its adaptability to the roads, the interiors system and equipments can compete with any high-class sedans. The experts who have seen the brand new Cherokee pointed out that its birth will give rise to a revolution in SUV field.
This revolution is, SUV would develop in the orientation of perfectly combining off-road vehicles and sedans so as to win a greater market share in the passenger car field.
