Chapter Nine: The Decade When Buyers Became Addicted To Trucks
Cars and trucks divided the market for years, until a turning point
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The 1990s were a time when carmakers discovered a way to earn more money on vehicle sales. While car sales were barely profitable, and often were sold at a loss, light trucks were lucrative.
The Jeep division alone was a reason for Daimler-Benz to buy Chrysler. Ford’s F-150 pickup has been the country’s best-selling vehicle for 41 years. General Motors had the one-two punch of pickups from Chevrolet and G.M.C., as well as sport utilities.
Still, well into the 2010s, cars and light trucks divided the automobile market, with the leadership swinging back and forth.
That changed in 2016, when light trucks took 61 percent of the American market, according to figures from AutoPacific. And since then, light trucks have continued their march. They broke 70 percent in 2019, and in 2022, they took 80 percent of the American car market.
Their dominance was deliberate, and it happened in plain sight.