Oh, the trends are shifting, no doubt.

From today's NY Times:

Sales figures reported Thursday showed that Toyota, Honda and other Asian manufacturers claimed a record 40 percent of the American market in May, when sales of fuel-efficient vehicles like the Toyota Corolla, Honda Civic and Hyundai Sonata all rose 20 percent or more compared with May 2005.

For Detroit companies, which have continued to aggressively market their costly new sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks despite the high gas prices, market share last month dropped to 52.9 percent — their second-lowest in history.

G.M. reported its first decline in sales of the new version of the Chevrolet Tahoe, which dropped 5.5 percent compared with 2005. G.M. has been banking on sales of its new S.U.V.'s and coming pickup trucks as the ballast for the turnaround plan it hopes will reverse its $10.6 billion 2005 loss.

S.U.V. sales also plunged at Ford, where overall sales dropped 6 percent. The compact Escape came only 18 vehicles shy of passing the Explorer, long the darling of Ford's sport utility lineup, as its most popular S.U.V.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/02/bu...th&oref=slogin