Research

Reader Feedback: Compact Vehicle Article Revisited

Compact Vehicle Registrations by State
Over 26 million compact vehicles are registered in the U.S., accounting for 10.58% of total vehicles.

The new SEMA website has many built-in functions and features that encourage industry collaboration. One tool in particular is helping shape the way SEMA members and SEMA staff communicate: article feedback.

At the bottom of each article is a designated area where readers can submit their impressions, comments, suggestions and critiques of each article. Staff considers each comment serious and truly appreciates both positive and negative feedback. Both help guide the direction of the topics and offer SEMA members an avenue to influence which elements of data they would like spotlighted.

Recently, SEMA ran an article highlighting the distribution of compact vehicles in the United States through vehicle registrations: Fuel Prices on the Rise Again–Where are the Compact Cars?

Readers used the tool to suggest expanding the tables to include additional information. Originally the article outlined the percentage of compact vehicles that are located in each state as a percentage of the entire volume of compact vehicles. The charts did not supply a comparison of the segment to the total population of vehicles and readers wanted additional information.

As a follow-up, SEMA is addressing the requests and including an expanded chart with both slices of data: compact vehicles and total vehicles for each state. Both data elements now illustrate the distribution of this vehicle segment from both sides of the story.

Over 26 million compact vehicles are distributed throughout the United States with the largest populations in California, Texas and Florida. This observation is not surprising as these states are also leaders in total vehicle units. When looking from the perspective of density—the states with the highest ratios of compacts—the situation changes. Hawaii and West Virginia have the highest occurrences of compacts compared to their total population, followed by California.

Also note that the numbers have changed slightly from the first report as the newest data was received from Experian Automotive just after the original article was released.

–SEMA Research & Information Center