Where is the logic in buying a gas-guzzling SUV just because gas prices are so low? As gas prices have tumbled, gas-hog sales have soared. November sales of the Cadillac Escalade SUV were up 91.5 percent over November of last year. In December, sales of Ford’s Navigator rose 90.2 percent. The Dodge Ram and Chevy Silverado each saw sales increase by about a third. These vehicles have an average gas mileage of 16 in the city and about 22 on the highway. “Seventy-five percent of Americans keep their vehicle for seven years,” Amy Myers Jaffe, executive director of Energy and Sustainability at University of California, Davis, said. “These cars stay on the road through the used-car market for 14 years. Even if takes two years for prices to rise again, you’ll still have the car for another five years, so why would you make a purchase based on a two-year phenomenon?”
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