More new vehicles bought on LI; fewer SUVs
The 2012 Honda Civic EX-L Sedan. Credit: Honda
Long Islanders bought 6.5 percent more new vehicles in January than a year earlier, yet interest in SUVs waned at a time of rising gasoline prices and a near absence of snow.
New registration figures from the Michigan-based auto data provider R.L. Polk & Co. show a 17.1 percent increase in deliveries of new passenger cars, to 7,309, but a drop of 3 percent, to 5,950, in registrations of new SUVs -- the latter despite an almost 28 percent gain by Jeep.
George Magliano, senior auto economist for Manhattan-based IHS Automotive, said, "Gas prices are back in the news, so it's on everybody's minds. It impacts those who are on the fence between a car and SUV."
He thinks January's mild weather might also have hurt sales of SUVs.
Michael Ward in the Manhattan office of the investment firm Sterne Agee said a better explanation for the softening of SUV sales on Long Island and nationwide is the aging of the Baby Boom generation, which reduces their need for family-hauling vehicles. "Part of it is demographics," he said.
Among the Island's most popular makes, new Honda registrations rose by 2.2 percent in January from a year earlier, to 1,766 vehicles; Nissans rose 16.3 percent to 1,501; Hyundais rose 6.5 percent to 1,082; and Fords rose by 23.1 percent to 1,073 vehicles. Toyota registrations fell by 9.3 percent, to 1,362.
General manager Denis Dagger at Smithtown Toyota said his inventory level hadn't yet fully recovered in January from the effects of last year's earthquake and tsunami in Japan and floods in Thailand, both of which affected vehicle production.
