Honda Knocks Ford Out Of Top Spot (US)

Big is out, lean is in. That's the message consumers are sending to SUV manufacturers these days. The Honda CR-V is the number one SUV in the U.S. while the Ford Explorer drops to fourth place.

"That category of traditional SUVs has clearly tumbled from its height," Ford sales analyst George Pipas said in an interview with Bloomberg. In 2002, automakers sold about 3 million truck-based SUVs in the United States. Pipas says that number will be "less than 2 million this year."

Meanwhile, sales of car-based crossover SUVs continue to climb. Sales of crossovers in the U.S. grew 15.2 percent through April 2007 to 893,441, while truck-based SUV sales dropped 8.8 percent to 564,417, according to Autodata Corp. The top three SUVs so far this year are all crossovers.

So will Ford follow suit and release a car-based SUV? Their Explorer model has been on top of the SUV list for quite a while now, so this kind of news could be unsettling for Ford. Maybe the Freestyle and Edge can fill the void. But the jury is till out on that one.

source: leftlanenews, Honda

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