I'm looking forward to the year when the Detroit Auto Show (among others) is canceled due to lack of interest.

Keep looking forward to that day...

Good news. Why do people need to drive around in small buses anyway?
To further increase sales then slap on 100% taxes on gas and diesel and things will get even better.
GM and Ford are Dinosaus anyway who should have become extinct 30 years ago.

We don't need any more gov't influence. Its obvious from this article that the free market is working and people are starting to make the right choices.

Ah yes, the not-so-venerable Exploder (what we coined our fleet car, based on the repair bills) takes a back seat to the Prius.

The SUVs are inefficient, loud, rough-riding, ill-handling, rollover-prone, and just plain ugly. The only good thing about driving one is that they're high (and maybe you were too when you bought it?). But I'd gladly trade the view for more stability.

So when will the Saturday paper’s "Automotive" section stop the steady parade of SUVs and other gas hogs? I hope we don't have to wait for the inventories to clear out. Let's see some cars that handle well, get 30-50 mpg, and seat 4-5 people.

It's about time!

This is misleading. It is easy for a vehicle with few competitors to outsell one with many.

Since the introduction of the Explorer its competition has steadily increased. EVERY significant manufacturer that sells in the US now sells at least one SUV. Even with $100 per barrel oil, foreign manufacturers keep making more SUV's and making them larger. Yesterday at the Detroit Auto Show, KIA unveiled a new large SUV with a V8.

The Prius, a hybrid-only 5 door, on the other hand is still pretty much in a class of one. Even if you add all of the hybrid vehicle sales up, they're still dwarfed by SUV's...and some of those hybrids are, of course, also SUV's.

==== author's response follows ===
I see your point.

However, Prius remains a class of one for three reasons.

Toyota got a 6 year head start over Detroit-based car makers, that led to patents which secured their (Toyota's) early-in advantage and made it much harder for others to mimic the designs true funtionality. The competition was left to shoe-horn their make-pretend "hybrid" add ons in to existing models on the theory that the e-guilt factor would be expiated, at a cost that a key market segment (Prius shoppers) wouldn't blink at.

SUV's are like McMansions: profit on each sale is much higher than it would be for a mid-size passenger car or (for that matter) for a two bed-room home. withs these new big models, all the car makers are competing for the dollars of those with no sense of ethics, plenty of disposable income (aside from those few tradesmen who actually use their trucks every day), and a need to look powerful and important with the latest electronic doo-dads bolted on.

Almost a third of Americans are seriously overweight and so prefer a step up and down from a chair-like bench with lots of room around them. In that sense, car makers really are giving people what they want. Put a pair of 300 pound persons in a Prius and the mileage is certain to reflect it.

RE; I'm looking forward to the year when the Detroit Auto Show (among others) is canceled due to lack of interest.
THE BIG CAR COMPANIES HAVE DRAGGED ON Electric Vehicles WAY TOO LONG!