With US petrol prices at historic lows and ever-more economical engines, sport utility vehicles (SUV) increasingly rule the road '“ and not only in the US.

At least that's the message from the Los Angeles Auto Show, which opened to the public yesterday.

'Customers feel the idea of freedom,' Ford vice-president of global sales Jim Farley said, presenting the US carmaker's new Explorer at the LA show, which runs until November 30.

'We have reached a tipping point,' where SUVs are more popular than sedans and have entered the mainstream, Farley, whose company is the biggest SUV maker in America, said.

Nearly one vehicle in five sold globally is an SUV, while in the US the figure is one in three.

The car category has come a long way since its early days, when SUVs were huge things mounted on a truck chassis, guzzling petrol and equipped with four-wheel drive for rough terrains.

In 2008, when petrol prices were at their peak, the market appeared permanently stalled. But these days SUVs or crossovers are rarely seen off road and are frequently built on a car chassis.

There is a whole range of formats, from the biggest including the Ford Escalade, Toyota Sequoia or Jeep Grand Cherokee to the most compact like the Mazda CX-3, the Honda CRV 2016 and the Volvo 2015 XC90, all unveiled in Los Angeles.

US car sales rose by six per cent year-on-year in October, led by SUVs: specialist brand Jeep (part of the Fiat Chrysler group) is up 52 per cent, but the trend extends to others, including Honda, Toyota and General Motors.

Bill Fay, vice-president of Toyota in the US, said October sales were the best monthly results in 10 years, fuelled by a strong demand for SUVs.

In some countries, such as China where SUVs are also in high demand, they are a symbol of success.

'In China it is less about utility, more about status. Bigger is better,' car website Edmunds.com analyst Jessica Caldwell said.-Reuters