Impala

Make
Chevrolet
Segment
Sedan

We know that 2016 was an incredible year for automotive sales. Even though the average price of a new car has never been higher, a reinvigorated economy and lower gas prices have jumped started a car buying frenzy in the US. When we say car buying, we really mean trucks, SUVs and crossovers. Company's like Jaguar have realized that SUVs are far more profitable than sedans right now. People generally don't buy as many sedans anymore, but the segment that has felt the impact the most is large, non-luxury sedans, according to Car and Driver.

In fact, the only large, non-luxury sedan that increased its sales in 2016 was the recently redesigned Nissan Maxima. Maxima sales went up by 55 percent in 2016 to 62,670 units. The other cars in this segment are the; Chevrolet Impala down 17 percent to 97,006 units, the Dodge Charger down 1 percent to 95,437 units, the Chrysler 300 flat at 53,241 units, the Toyota Avalon down 20 percent to 48,080 units, the Ford Taurus down 10 percent to 44,098 units, the Buick LaCrosse down 34 percent to 27,582 units, the Hyundai Azera down 11 percent to 4942 units, and the Kia Cadenza down 36 percent to 4738 units.

Clearly the cars in this segment haven't experienced any growth, and we think it's because automakers put more effort into advertising SUVs. Among those large cars, only the Dodge Charger has an interesting model with the SRT-8 and Hellcat versions. The rest are fairly boring, and do not offer that much more space over midsize models like the Chevy Malibu, Toyota Camry and Nissan Altima. This is a segment that we could see disappearing in the coming years. None of these cars are particularly compelling, and the car companies realize it. Even Nissan, which posted the only gain in this segment, realizes that crossovers and SUVs are more important for the future.