I dunno, “the market is going SUV and not looking back” makes me think they are once again being short-sighted. If nothing else, it means we won’t be getting much in the way of innovation from the U. S. makers.
I suspect this time its more of a "Young people aren't buying cars, so extract more money out of the older folks for a bit until we hit the wall."
Ridesharing has taken a big toll on all the car manufacturers.
They tend to buy SUVs.
One trick is that you can make a big, powerful vehicle that's much lighter and more fuel efficient than you could in the past: http://autoweek.com/article/car-news/aluminum-and-ford-f-150
They don't believe so. The article discusses this -- "Today’s (SUVs and Crossovers) get mileage close to the equivalent cars."
“The fuel economy trade-off is not nearly as much of a trade-off as it used to be,” Raj Nair, head of Ford’s North American operations, said. (snip) Even if gas prices soar (snip) consumers are more likely now to switch to a smaller, more fuel efficient SUV, than abandon their beloved bigger rigs, Schuster said.