What’s with all the big cars? SUVs go from strength to strength
It wasn’t really that long ago that sport utility vehicles – SUVs – were a bit player in the car market. This vehicle sector only accounted for around 12% of the overall market. How times have changed. Now, in 2019, SUVs take up over 30% of car sales globally, with almost 30 million sold in 2018 alone – miles ahead of any other vehicle category.
The growth of the SUV sector has made a real impact on the international car market, as well as on the world at large. These big, often all-wheel-driven five or seven-seater cars sit high up on our roads, and are known for their comfort, space and safety. What’s more, SUVs are increasingly popular with women car buyers – a very desirable and competitive customer segment for marketers.
Can the uptake of SUVs continue to grow?
Whether or not continued SUV uptake is sustainable is open to question. These large vehicles are more often than not much costlier to buy and to maintain than smaller cars over a long period. They also require more resources and energy to build. Furthermore, looking to the future of motoring, they don’t make for a perfect platform when it comes to electrification, a thing all car manufacturers have one or both eyes on at the moment.
Despite individual aspirations, in reality the majority people don’t really need such a large vehicle. However, many are swayed by their perception of the SUV as a status symbol. These vehicles are in the main engineered to be robust and effective off-road driving machines, but the truth is that most are never used in this way.
SUVs and Continental
Over the last decade, to meet the surge in SUV popularity, Continental has developed an unrivalled range of specialist premium tyres for SUVs. They are engineered to be both comfortable and capable while providing unrivalled grip in all manner of conditions. These tyres are also manufactured with improved rolling resistance, providing drivers with superior fuel efficiency. Unsurprisingly, demand for these tyres has rocketed as the popularity of SUVs has continued to rise, and many of these cars leave the factory floors of Europe fitted with Continental OE (Original Equipment).
With so many sales across the world, people new to owning an SUV are often caught out when it comes to buying replacement tyres for their vehicle. Like the vehicles themselves, SUV tyres are larger and wider, and as a result more expensive than the tyres you’d find on a smaller, lighter car. Continental tyres are optimised to complement the vehicle they are fitted to, giving optimum levels of safety and performance. As such, if you already have Continental OE fitted, stick with them as like-for-like replacement is recommended.
This is particularly crucial with SUVs, as these heavier, more robust vehicles are often very demanding on their tyres, and as a result only function at their optimum when the right tyres fitted. Continental’s latest SUV tyre – only recently released – is the CrossContact™ ATR. This brilliant tyre – very well received by the automotive industry – has performance and safety characteristics that allow the driver to own the road, no matter what the terrain may be.
SUVs and the future
Many automotive manufacturers believe that SUVs will continue to be highly popular long into the 2020s. This is despite increasingly stricter emissions testing coming into force around the world, and the pursuit by many cities of greener alternative transport solutions. Furthermore, we’re now beginning to see more large high-performance SUVs being produced, particularly at the luxury end of the market, adding to the demands placed on tyres.
And what of the future? Zero-emission electric SUVs are presenting new challenges to tyre engineers, primarily the issue of needing to accommodate heavy batteries. That said, the expert automotive team at Continental are confident that their near 150 years track record of cutting-edge research and development will ultimately help lead to the creation of the very best next generation electric vehicle SUV tyres.
BestDrive by Continental – You drive, we care.