In an article published on 3/11/08 in USA Today about the recent record fuel prices ("Record fuel prices blow budgets"), it reports that according to Autodata, sales of the least expensive, smallest vehicles increased 34% last month. It also reports that "sales of all types of small cars" were up 5%, even though the industry as a whole was down 6%.
With the national average gas price at $3.23 a gallon (here in Portland, OR it's averaging $3.38 a gallon), evidently, at least last month, people decided to start purchasing smaller cars. I never expect to see gas below $3.00 a gallon again, I can't imagine we'll see a big drop off in small car sales. Add to this a slew of new subcompact cars on the horizon bound for the U.S. from Ford, GM, and probably the other automakers, this could be a sign of a bona-fide paradigm shift.
For your conveninece, I've included a super-accurate graph I created to show the relationship between gas prices and U.S. small car sales. You can thank me later.
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