Gas prices steady, SUV sales rise

According to WNYC’s Transportation Nation, sales of SUVs are up. Some of the fastest growth in car sales for May 2010, compared to the same month a year ago, was in light trucks. Toyota reported its car sales down, but light trucks ? the RAV4 and Highlander SUVs ? were up 14 percent. Gas prices haven’t been down for long, so why are people going for the gas-guzzling SUVs?

John McEleny sells Toyota and GM cars in Iowa, and he is the chairman of the National Association of Automobile Dealers. He points out one detail: the really, really big vehicles aren’t seeing the same gains. “RAV4 is a compact SUV and it gets really good gas mileage. In our case here, there hasn’t been a large increase in the sales of large SUVs.”