In recent years, there has been an increasing demand for Sports Utility Vehicles (SUVs), and research shows there is no sign of it slowing down. According to Michelin, the second-largest tyre manufacturer in the world, one in three cars registered in the UK are SUVs.
The news comes after Michelin collated data from a variety of sources and found that 35.5% of the new car market comprises of SUVs. In that group, 20% of the UK’s top five SUVs are manufactured in the country, while the rest are imported from around the world – the UK’s favourites are: the Nissan Qashqai, the Ford Kuga, the Kia Sportage, the Vauxhall Mokka X and the Volkswagen Tiguan. 8% of all cars sold in the UK are classed as SUVs, too.
In Germany, four out of five of the best-selling SUVs were made in the country; from the likes of VW, BMW and Mercedes – the only outlier is Ford’s Kuga. In Sweden, too: 40% of the top five are built in the country, where 12% of cars sold in the Scandinavian country are SUVs.
News of this growing trend shouldn’t come as a surprise for those who are following recent car launches. It would seem that every manufacturer’s goal is to release a new SUV or crossover SUV (which is a smaller-sized SUV that is based on a mid-sized vehicle) – for example, there’s a lot of chatter online about Tesla’s upcoming crossover SUV, the Model Y. The manufacturer’s vehicle is based on the vastly popular Model 3, which is a saloon-sized vehicle.
Elsewhere, Ford announced its first all-electric model, the Mustang Mach-E – despite its name, the vehicle is yet another example of a manufacturer designing an SUV, as opposed to a sports car or five-door hatchback.
As seen from the graph above, SUVs are massively popular – the only vehicle segment we see catching up with SUVs is pickup trucks; it’s a common vehicle type over in the states and with the somewhat recent announcement of Tesla’s Cybertruck and Rivian’s R1T, we anticipate more manufacturers jumping on the bandwagon.
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