Even back in 2005, the SUV has been experiencing significant drops in sales. Trucks are feeling the heat too. The famed Ford F-150 is no longer America’s best- selling vehicle.

Here’s a clip relating Barack Obama and the fall of GM:

The news that General Motors plans to stop production at its plant in the Rock County City — along with three other large-vehicle manufacturing facilities — by 2010 was noted by the senator from Illinois in a statement issued from his campaign. Obama recalled visiting the plant in February, when he delivered a major address on trade policy to workers at the facility six days before he won the Wisconsin primary.

“My heart goes out to the workers and families affected by the closing of these GM plants, including the Janesville plant that I visited a few months ago,” Obama said. “Today’s news is a painful reminder not only of the challenges America faces in our global economy, but of George Bush’s failed economic policies. For eight long years, we’ve had an energy policy that funds both sides in the war on terror without promoting fuel efficiency or helping make our auto companies more competitive. That’s part of the reason thousands of more Americans in Wisconsin and Ohio will no longer be able to count on a paycheck at a time when they’re already being pinched by rising costs.”                          – Emily of thelostalbatross.blogspot.com

GM also approved the production version of the Chevrolet Volt electric car. Wagoner said at the meeting that 18 of GM’s next 19 vehicle introductions will be cars or crossover wagons.

The automaker lost $38.7 billion last year, its largest deficit ever, after writing down $39 billion of future tax benefits. GM hasn’t had an annual profit since 2004.

GM said April 28 that it would eliminate shifts at three truck plants and a factory that makes SUVs because of slack demand for models such as the Silverado pickup.

GM, which got 57 percent of its U.S. sales this year from light trucks, is scrambling to adjust to consumers turning away from such models. Trucks have outsold cars annually since 2001, reaching 56 percent of the U.S. market in 2004, when gasoline prices averaged $1.85 a gallon.

“The biggest issue we’re dealing with now in profitability is how weak the truck market is,” GM sales chief Mark LaNeve said last week in an interview in Los Angeles. “We have better profits in trucks; everybody has better profits in trucks.”                – Jeff Green and Bill Koenig of Bloomberg.com

I came across a forum thread and I thought it was worth sharing. The user claims that he purchased a 2008 Nissan Quest for $15,900. The MSRP was $26,500, which calculates to exactly 40% off. This is just a testsament to how far the SUV has dropped off the map. Nissan is providing $3500 rebates, plus another $5000 back to dealerships who sell a certain quota of vehicles. Vehicles don’t provide great margins of profit for manufacturers. Nissan must be taking a huge loss on the ‘08 SUVs by selling them for $8800 below MSRP.

Back in 2000, my friends purchased a Lexus RX300 above MSRP. The Acura MDX was selling extremely quickly, and gas proces were more than reasonable. It’s a bittersweet vision to see the versatile, spacious gas-guzzling SUV slowly disappearing.