Passenger vehicles in the United States
In the 21st century, large SUVs have become popular in the U.S., leading to increased greenhouse gas emissions[3] and pedestrian deaths.
The United States is commonly regarded as a car-centric country, with cars being a dominant American mode of transport.
[6][7] The United States Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration as well as the National Automobile Dealers Association have published data in regard to the total number of vehicles, growth trends, and ratios between licensed drivers, the general population, and the increasing number of vehicles on American roads.
[8] New York City is the only locality in the country where more than half of all households do not own a car (the figure is even higher in Manhattan, over 75%; nationally, the rate is 8%).
[9] According to cumulative data[1] by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) the number of motor vehicles increased steadily from 1960 to 2006, only stagnating once in 1997 and declining from 1990 to 1991.
In the year 2001, the National Automobile Dealers Association conducted a study revealing the average age of vehicles in operation in the US.
[12] This relatively high age of automobiles in the US might be explained by unaffordable prices for comparable new replacement vehicles and a corresponding gradual decline in sales figures since 1998.
This number includes the effect of the 2009 Car Allowance Rebate System program, also known as "Cash for Clunkers", in which approximately 850,000 vehicles were bought and scrapped by the federal government.
[17] The discount is commonly determined by the company's marketing strategies and tends to be larger the slower selling a vehicle is.
Due to what many American consumers have perceived as a declining quality among the automobiles manufactured by the "Big Three" and large fixed labor and capital costs, discounts tend to be larger on domestic vehicles.
[citation needed] American-made cars took on enormous proportions as consumers placed their emphasis on comfort, power and style.
Large sedans from this era came to be known as land yachts, often rivaling today's largest pick-up trucks in terms of length and width.
In 2020 the average light-duty automobile, including light trucks, in the US had a fuel economy rating of 23.0 MPG or 10.2 liters per 100 kilometers.
[21] Mainstream mid-size sedans such as the Chevrolet Malibu or Ford Fusion are often perceived to be the typical and most common body style in the United States.
[citation needed] Americans cars have transported 3,235,752 million Passenger-Miles in the US, in 2006, according to the DoT[25] (against 4,678 billion passenger kilometers[26] in the EU-27).
According to many sources, the extended US operations of foreign based companies now rival those of American automobile manufacturers.
For the purposes of Federal regulations, such as Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) and the American Automobile Labeling Act of 1994 (AALA),[32] vehicles produced in the United States, regardless of brand, are considered "domestic", while vehicles produced outside the United States are considered "imported".
This perception is due to the respective brands' longstanding association with their parent countries: Toyota with Japan, Mercedes-Benz with Germany, and Pontiac with the United States.
[35] GM is headquartered at the Renaissance Center in downtown Detroit, employs approximately 216,000 people, sold 9.025 million cars worldwide, and had a US$152.35 billion revenue for the year 2015.
In 2005, the Chrysler Group employed 83,130 people and sold 2.83 million vehicles globally, generating $57.4 billion in revenue.
Chrysler entered into bankruptcy in 2008, and was then owned by the Italian car maker FIAT and the United Auto Workers Union.
FCA in turn merged on January 16, 2020, with French based PSA Group to form a new entity called Stellantis.
All those models are made exclusively at Spartanburg for both the domestic market and worldwide exports (not counting CKD operations in some countries).
Following the success of the Civic and Accord, the company opened a new plant in Marysville, Ohio in 1982 to assemble the model, which went on to become the most popular car in the US in 1989.
Some vehicles, such as the older CR-V (in the eastern United States) and the Civic SI hatchback, were imported from the UK.
[38] In 1997, a year before the merger of Damiler-Benz and Chrysler, the former Daimler-Benz followed the steps of their Bavarian competitor and opened a plant in Tuscaloosa County, Alabama, to serve as a worldwide production location for the new M-Class.
American car company Lucid based in Newark, California manufactures its luxury electric sedan the Air in Casa Grande, Arizona.
Tesla is an American company based in Silicon Valley that designs, manufactures and sells electric vehicles and, through its subsidiary SolarCity, solar power energy systems.
Toyota went on to establish a number of wholly owned plants in states such as Kentucky, Indiana, California, Texas, West Virginia and Alabama.
Built at the Volkswagen Chattanooga Assembly Plant, the new Passat allows building and shipping costs to be reduced significantly over its predecessor making it more competitive to offerings from competitors at the $20K mark.
