I always wanted to control the Big Three. Not the once-mighty Detroit automakers but the three biggest personal expenses: house, car, and food. Thankfully, I got lucky with the house. Cars are my living. And food? My wife is an awe inspiring Zen master; I’m still working on spaghetti. But over the course of time our priorities have changed. Health care crept up. Then education. Now it’s saving for the volatile road of the near future. The world has changed, more folks are embracing frugality, and the world of cars reflects this seismic shock.
Small cars are now on the radar for most families. Honda Civics. Toyota Corollas. Even the domestic counterparts that were once taboo for many American families ten years ago are becoming the norm. Side airbags, standard ABS, high strength steel, and advanced safety structures have all made compact vehicles a viable option. Not to mention their S-I-Z-E. Even my wife now drives a Civic. A Civic!
There’s a paradigm shift taking place in automotive safety, and cost-conscious consumers know it. Listen to the sound of Americans complaining that new CAFE regs will put them in “penalty boxes.” Exactly. With electronic stability control, curtain airbags and crash avoidance technology trickling down over these next few years, it may not be long before compact cars overtake midsized cars for annual sales.
Still, remember: safety isn’t it. Like roominess, increasing safety simply lowers the barrier that economy-minded (not to mention first time) buyers must jump. Price is it. Running costs are it. For buyers or sellers of automobiles looking to minimize their number one expense—depreciation—I have one piece of advice. Watch those gas prices. As we learned during the last spike, when the cost of gas goes up, small isn’t beautiful. It’s drop-dead gorgeous.
Huzzah for small cars! I really think that a Civic/Cobalt-sized car would fit the bill for the required usage of the vast majority of people. Small cars have always been big players in the US market, despite the Big 3’s continued blatantly untrue insistence to the contrary. We still hear “Americans don’t want small cars” from the domestic makers while the Civic and Corolla are perennial top-10 sellers. It blows my mind.
When gas prices go up, people may have to actually think about what they need instead of simply what they want. That’s not a bad change.
When gas prices go up, people may have to actually think about what they need instead of simply what they want. That’s not a bad change.
Or what they need instead of what they MIGHT need. Hey, I might need to tow a boat, or might need to haul 6 people. Never do, but I MIGHT. Get real.
John
Let’s be completely accurate here – today’s small cars aren’t so small or cheap anymore.
A 2009 Civic is the true heir of the 1994 Accord (which was one of the top two selling cars of that year). A 2009 Accord, meanwhile, is a pretty big car. Same with the 2009 Camry.
Americans want small cars like the 2009 Civic, which gets decent gas mileage, still has room for four adults, doesn’t look cheap (inside or out) and has all of the bells and whistles (a full array of power assists, sunroof, a gazillion air bags, etc.).
They do not want the spiritual descendants of the 1960 Rambler American, or the 1999 Cavalier – namely, cars that look and feel cheap and offer a low price but not much else. If that were the case, the Cobalt and the Aveo would be flying off the lots.
It will be interesting to see how the updated Ford Focus fares, and whether Ford seizes the opportunity to move the car upscale to better compete with the Civic.
As Lee Iacocca once famously said, on the eve of the original Mustang’s introduction, “People want economy and will pay any price to get it.”
Selling economy and low price will only get so many people in the door.
Or what they need instead of what they MIGHT need. Hey, I might need to tow a boat, or might need to haul 6 people. Never do, but I MIGHT. Get real.
John
Or my favorite: “I’m working on my house so I need an F-150. It’s cheaper than renting one.” You know, if you want a full-size pickup truck, just come on out and admit it. I can tow 2000 lbs with my Saab wagon, and I imagine with a decent size trailer I can pick up plenty of paint and plywood from the Home Depot that’s 5 miles away. If I need more hauling I’ll just rent their truck at $25 an hour.
I’d add a couple of caveats here – the average weight of the American male is now 191 pounds, and the average female is 164 pounds – and that’s from 2002.
http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/healthcare/a/tallbutfat.htm
Consider, then, that since this is the *mean* which tells us that half of people are even heavier.
Now, with this new information, let’s recalculate how many people want really want small cars, again.
There are a lot of us who think of an Accord or a Camry as a small car… and they are…. compared to an SUV.
To be honest, though, I haven’t been in a Civic in quite a while. Are they roomy enough to consider these days?
Really, as Mr. Lang probably knows from ample experience, the biggest single factor in depreciation is the new/used divide. Gas price spikes are a secondary factor, and really only on the margins (killing large SUVs and making old Geos strangely fashionable, for a while).
Get a known-reliable midsize model that’s seen an average amount of use at ~4 years of age, and you’re looking at another 100,000 miles of fairly reliable motoring with the biggest year-on-year depreciation hits well in the past.
Owning cars for the long-term is a good way to control their cost. Pick a good one (new or used, really), and keep it in the family until it’s well past 100,000 or 150,000 miles. You can decide what’s worth throwing money at only with regard to what you really want or need, and you don’t have to give a care about re-sale value (i.e. what other people think). It’s liberating.
Something strange is going on at the local Toyota dealer. He still had his new Toyotas in several rows on one side of his lot. Then is a single row of used Toyotas. Then, across a driveway have been the non-Toyota used cars, mostly domestics. But within the last week the non-Toyota used stuff is almost all gone and has been replaced by used Toyotas. I’m wondering what’s going on. Has there been a run on the used non-Toyota stuff or has he sent it off to auction? Maybe he sees the prices of this stuff falling or sees buyers unwilling to take it when GM joins Chrysler in BR. Any ideas?
We have gone way off of the sanity deep end when it comes to the concept of, and the feeling of safety. There is a strong current of irrational cowardice in our culture, and it goes back decades, and I honestly think it is fostered by power mongering interests of all sorts, be they governmental or commercial. Fear is likely the most effective manipulator of populations. So, don’t by a (less profitable) small car, they are cracker box death traps! That has been a theme since the 70’s fostered by US carmakers who never liked small vehicles.
The less monster vehicles there are on the road, the more safe small vehicles will be. The whole ” I have a bigger vehicle, so I am personally safer, and I will cream you in a crash” is a self fulfilling prophecy, and a kind of an arms war as well. With all the additional safety features, and crash standards, certainly the smallest vehicle today is overall safer than the 2-3 ton barges of the past.
And what? Me worry? Look at deaths per mile traveled. It would take hundreds of years for my number to come up. If I could save a $1000 or more by deleting the airbags on a Honda Fit, I would not hesitate.
That’s all fine and dandy until you have to haul 3 kids, a stroller, and a week’s worth of groceries in the trunk. A Fit ain’t gonna do it.
Compact cars are the bestsellers in Canada, mostly due to the high price of gas up north, they tend to have higher content, and higher prices than here. I don’t think we are ready here for $25K compacts. In my daily commute in Washington DC the majority of vehicles are still larger SUV’s with one occupant. Maybe gas at $2.27 has something to do with it???
Families will still buy big cars, but perhaps only one of them. Instead of having Mom driving the Odyssey and Dad driving a Pilot, maybe one of them will ditch one of the big cars and instead drive a Civic (Accord/CRV more likely)
I still see a lot of families with Dad driving an F-150 or Tundra and Mom driving a “mid-size” SUV like a Highlander, Explorer or Pilot.
And another thing, depending on styling and body style, some “small” cars actually look big. The Ford Escape is an example. To me it looks big, but is actually shorter than a Mazda3 which looks very small. And the Jeep Patriot to me looks like a decent sized vehicle, but is actually shorter than a Ford Focus which seems looks tiny to my eye.
With cars being the expense that they are, a family has to buy what they need for most of the time. The work car might also have to function as the car to haul the three kids and a stoller and a week’s groceries. Those that can afford more than one or two cars will likely have the small car for the commute(s) and the Accord or Pilot for the family outings. But not all folks can afford that, to think everyone can spring for a new or newer used small car is delusional. Many of us have to “run what we brung” with little other option available in the short term.
DCDriver: actually a Fit WILL do it. Have you been in one?
3 kids, an umbrella stroller, and a week’s groceries fit fine. A Mazda5 works a bit better, but there isn’t much more useful space to be had in many SUVs.
WildBill – It’s that kind of individuality, self interest, and independent thinking that has given the United States a bad reputation.
Sounds a lot like “… to each according to his needs” in here.
Ya’ll need more Koolaid?
That’s all fine and dandy until you have to haul 3 kids, a stroller, and a week’s worth of groceries in the trunk. A Fit ain’t gonna do it.
I’ll see your three kids and a stroller and raise you a child’s BMX bike and a large dog crate. All that is usually always in the back of the Yukon my wife drives. You can’t stuff that much in most minivans let alone any cars made today.
I have seen plenty of families getting along with smaller cars in countries other than the USA. Our culture encourages insatiable conspicuous consumption and we are very confused discerning the difference between wants versus needs. I would bet millions of humans across his planet lead happier and more meaningful lives existing in (by our perspective) poverty, than millions of people in the USA who are stuck in the trap/treadmill of making money to support the materialism we think is a requirement for happiness. That which you own, owns you.
Just bought a “new to me” car. 07 Buick Lucerne with 3800 V6 for $14500. 20000 miles and 20 city/30 highway MPG. Looked at Civics and the like and decided that room was worth a few less MPGs. Even when gas was $4 last year, room and safety still trump small.
In September of last year, I was looking at getting a new or late model used car. When I added the numbers up, I got a used car. Then another used car with under 40k miles on it was available, and I purchased that one also.
So I ended up with 2 used cars (both 4 cylinder engines) with under 40k miles on each of them.
And combined, they cost the same as a new model of the cheaper of the two. I’ll take two used cars for the price of one new one.
Yes smaller cars do make more sense financially, but what is working against that is the fact that right now you can get really good deals on big barges, SUVs and pickups. For many, a Dodge Ram at 10k off MSRP looks pretty tempting. That Lucerne that Omnifan mentioned was a steal, hard to pass up those deals.
A Honda Fit will do all of that, and will take the BMX on the roof. The dog might have to walk, unless you stick his soggy butt on one of the kids’ laps.
Most people can’t grasp how big these new “small” cars are. The Honda Civic may be almost as big as an old Accord… but the new Mitsubishi Lancer is bigger than an old Galant of same vintage.
The Fit is bigger than most Civics… and only loses out to the current car in elbow room. I’ve got buddies who use their first-generation Fits as shop cars and family cars. How many midsize sedans can carry the kids to school and then cart two engines (or eight wheels, or a bunch of racing seats) to the shop afterwards? If ever there was a worthy successor to the Bug as the people’s car, the Fit is it.
I’d like to think my wife and I were ahead of the game on the current trend of household personal vehicle downsizing or HPVD. We have an 07 Focus and reg-cab 05 F150 SB-V6 and for our family of three, both vehicles work perfectly.
After 5 years of minivan, we got smart. The rest of America is slowly catching up.
In the face of global competition, Detroit has only kept the lead in those few market segments where most foreign competitors have no incentive to invest heavily. Small cars were *not* one of those sectors, so Detroit got creamed when it built them. Citation, Cavalier, Escort, Neon, anyone?
Artificially low gas prices have preserved a few market segments here that don’t exist on a similar scale anywhere else in the world: bloated luxury-segment passenger cars, SUVs and pickup trucks. Nowhere else in the world can the average consumer afford these barges as daily drivers.
Trying to turn this bad news (that Detroit could only thrive in market sectors where Toyota feared to tread) into good PR, Detroit has repeated for decades the self-serving propaganda that “Americans hate small cars.”
But it’s just not true. Americans don’t hate small cars; they just hate small *American* cars.
Old VW Beetles were tremendously popular, and Civicorollas (along with their class ancestors, the older Camcordias) have been perennial bestsellers for decades.
I sincerely hope the Euro Focus and Fiesta are successful. Our car sensibilities are subtly different from the Europe’s in ways that sometimes mystify me, like the American failure of the Saturn/Opel Astra, but I still have hope that a properly-massaged European small car can find a home here.
‘Properly massaged’ should not mean “add more cupholders, soften the suspension, and screw the build quality,” however, and here’s where Ford’s track record starts to make me nervous. Along with the ‘Made in Mexico’ label, that pretty much turns me off completely.
A Honda Fit will do all of that, and will take the BMX on the roof. The dog might have to walk, unless you stick his soggy butt on one of the kids’ laps.
The crate is actually for two dogs. We used to just let them hang out on the floor of the minivan until one of them tried to squeeze in under my legs while I was driving. They travel with us in their crate from now on. It’s just way safer that way.
cjdumm: “Artificially low gas prices…”
I think it’s the other way around – gas prices elsewhere are artificially high.
Well considering I’m driving a 20 year old car, and the rules set in 2016, I might be driving a 2015 525i in 2035, I’ll be 51. Sounds really Good. I got 27 years atleast, to enjoy current cars.
In the first few years of my marriage we owned a ’79 Ford Fiesta, in which we managed to travel to the west coast (2,000 kms, or 1250 miles) during winter, with two small children and the required luggage for a week long stay. If you haven’t had children, you need to know that many toys, and a lot of clothes, make the journey with the kids. We made it there and back without too much suffering.
We managed this past year to travel to Minneapolis for a four day weekend with four adults in our ’05 Ford Focus, and brought back treasures form my wife and her sister’s favourite stores. Didn’t need a roof rack, didn’t need a trailer, and yet all four of us managed to reach our personal exemption limit of duty free purchases.
Our next car will be smaller and more fuel efficient that the Focus, because we don’t need anything bigger. I’m over 6 feet tall and push around 225 lbs and my wife is 5’11” (her weight has and always will remain a mystery to me, but she’s a large woman) and we have no problem with the Focus, even with the sunroof. To me, the relative size of Americans as a reason to shun small cars is a red herring propagated by manufacturers who don’t want to sell low profit small cars.
Perhaps it’s our age, but Mrs. Monty and I buy what we need, not what we want. Do I want a 5000 square foot mansion? Yes, but do I really need it? No, of course not. Did I want a 4×4 extra cab pickup with all the bells and whistles? Of course. What did I buy? What I needed, which was a used 2wd regular cab long box with a V6. I have more disposable income than a lot of my friends because we haven’t bought into the “buy it all now” syndrome, yet I earn far less than most of them. It’s a hard lesson to learn, but buying what you need, not what you want, with cash, not borrowed money is the sanest way to live. Way less stress, far more disposable income.
That’s all fine and dandy until you have to haul 3 kids, a stroller, and a week’s worth of groceries in the trunk. A Fit ain’t gonna do it.
Tough call, actually; we have a minivan we’re getting rid of, because now that our twins are out of car seats it’s just massive overkill. Even when we had a twin stroller, two dogs, two parents and groceries, we could have used something like the Nissan Cube (which we’re thinking of buying now) — we just thought we needed something much bigger. If I had to do it all over again, I would have bought the Mazda5 at the time instead of the MPV we have now.
cjdumm :
May 26th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
In the face of global competition, Detroit has only kept the lead in those few market segments where most foreign competitors have no incentive to invest heavily. Small cars were *not* one of those sectors, so Detroit got creamed when it built them. Citation, Cavalier, Escort, Neon, anyone?
You neglect to mention the Ford Focus, which was a massive hit when introduced and continues to sell well. You also neglect to mention that the Neon and Escort were also huge sellers.
You also neglect to mention that Japan, Inc. has had very little success in the areas where Detroit is strongest. The Toyota Tundra and Nissan Titan are both bombs, and their large SUVs don’t sell either.
Detroit CAN do it right and Japan, Inc. CAN do it wrong.
My family of four has managed two 1000-mile trips from Denver to Chicago and back in our ’05 Focus, and I’m here to report that it’s possible, but not a whole lot of fun. We averaged 28 mpg on the trip.
A few weekends back, we rented a GMC Acadia for a trip up to the mountains, and it was an absolute pleasure. We averaged 20 mpg per the trip computer – not bad given the amount of mountain driving we had to do. If the trip had been on the same flat roads between Denver and Chicago, I’m sure we could have done a lot better, probably closer to the 24 mpg the EPA rates the vehicle for.
We did the cross country trips in our Focus because we had to, and if we had to, we could have done it in a Fit or any other compact. But given the choice, and the mileage that’s not all that much worse, would you rather drive a Focus or a minivan or crossover SUV?
Personally, I like small and midsize cars, but I hurt because they all have insufficient leg room (35″ inseam) for me – even the big boats tend to keep the front legroom the same, and give more to the back seat passengers.
I remember sitting in a 1968 Mercedes 250-280 SE – with the seat (what I thought was) all the way back, I complained “not enough”; the owner gave a wry smile, and pointed me to an extra lever on the seat track, when I moved it, the seat went back an extra 3″; I was too far from the pedals! (Granted, no one could occupy the seat behind me).
That little “easter egg” made me a Mercedes fan, and made me look for that feature in later cars (never to be found). However, my previous car (’97 Camaro) had the next best thing – an extra lever that rocked the seat bottom up in the front for extra thigh support – it was great.
I tried to simulate the same thing in my 2008 Elantra – I bought longer bolts for the front seat mounts and used washers to jack the front of the seat bottom up, but the best I could do was 3/4″; better, but not quite right.
But for 31MPG, well…
cjdumm :
May 26th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
I sincerely hope the Euro Focus and Fiesta are successful. Our car sensibilities are subtly different from the Europe’s in ways that sometimes mystify me, like the American failure of the Saturn/Opel Astra, but I still have hope that a properly-massaged European small car can find a home here.
‘Properly massaged’ should not mean “add more cupholders, soften the suspension, and screw the build quality,” however, and here’s where Ford’s track record starts to make me nervous. Along with the ‘Made in Mexico’ label, that pretty much turns me off completely.
The 2000 Focus was designed in Europe and mechanically, is almost identical to the European model. The suspension changes you mention mainly have to do with the fact that American roads can ba a lot rougher than European roads.
“Made in Mexico” hasn’t seemed to hurt the Focus’ reliability – Consumer Reports rates it as a recommended car, so reliability must be at least average.
The Astra was a nice car, but it was victimized by the poor Euro/Dollar exchange rate, so it came out expensive and underpowered. Otherwise, it was a very nice piece.
“Survival of the Cheapest” – same thing happened in the Great Depression. All the really great cars died – Stutz, Marmon, Duesenberg. Only cheap Detroit crap survived.
FreedMike :
You also neglect to mention that Japan, Inc. has had very little success in the areas where Detroit is strongest. The Toyota Tundra and Nissan Titan are both bombs, and their large SUVs don’t sell either.
————————————————
Hmm, actually no. Whatever Detroit can do, Japan. Inc. can do it better.
As for the trucks:
1) Tundra is highly successful. It’s an overstatement to claim that it’s a bomb, if it doesn’t become the top selling model in a couple of years of introduction. Rome is not built in one day.
2) Chicken tax. Ever heard of it?
3) Japanese don’t buy trucks. So, they did’t have an existing platform ready. They have to do it step by step. And they already showed substantial success. The top selling SUV in the US is CRV.
Honda Fit vs. van. I am an expert here, being perhaps the only person in the western hemisphere to buy a Fit in replacement of a Ford Club Wagon.
Three teenagers is the magic number that takes most small cars out of contention. Of my 3, two are boys. The short one is 6 2 and the tall one is 6 4. Neither the Civic nor the Mazda 3 had the headroom we needed, so the Fit really was it.
HOWEVER, The Fit can handle our whole family for only short distances. We have not taken a family trip of over an hour since we got it.
Another problem is that each of my teenagers has friends. That extra seat or 3 is huge as a family hauler. Carpooling to school and games REQUIRES a vehicle that seats 7. Actually, my old Club Wagon only seated 7 and I wished more than once that I had the 8 psgr version.
Conclusion – the Fit does 90% of what we need it to. But for travel with any kind of comfort and cargo capacity at all, you need at least a minivan. If I knew that gas would not go over $3 for the next 4 years, I would buy another E150 Club Wagon in a heartbeat.
SL…
I don’t know why the lesson you think the public learned is small is better.
Because here is the list of the top 10 selling cars in the US so far in 2009.
So, in fact I think the lesson was buy what you wantbecause…
…gas will go up, and gas will go down.
Quality is still what drives sales.
The list has only 2 economy cars.
The largest number are still larger, more expensive and worse in mpg.
RANK VEHICLE 2009 2008 ’08 RANK % Chng
1 Ford F-Series P/U 110,336 192,951 1 -42.8
2 Chevy Silverado-C/K P/U 93,720 160,010 2 -41.4
3 Toyota Camry 92,523 147,018 3 -37.1
4 Honda Accord 84,491 122,430 6 -31.0
5 Toyota Corolla 78,132 99,482 4 -21.5
6 Honda Civic 76,782 111,695 8 -31.3
7 Dodge Ram P/U 64,522 93,068 5 -30.7
8 Nissan Altima 61,670 99,037 9 -37.7
9 Honda CR-V 50,647 69,058 11 -26.7
10 Chevrolet Malibu 50,265 59,133 26 -15.0
It’s worth noting that the current Focus is built in Wayne, MI, had posted 41,747 sales as of the end of April, and is doing just fine with regards to reliability and customer satisfaction.
I don’t think I will ever understand the absolute glee some people express at the thought of Americans having to own and operate smaller cars. Perhaps it’s just a bit of class warfare: how dare those middle-class losers drive around in something better (or at least larger) than a Civic! How dare they! Why doesn’t the hoi polloi understand its place in this world?
When I see regular people driving nice cars, or G-d forbid, SUVs, it cheers me up. The economy isn’t a zero-sum game. I am no poorer because my neighbor is happy; quite the reverse, in fact.
Jack B
I am so pleased to hear a voice in the wilderness.
And to add, I am also extremely full of the constant drumbeat against American style and taste.
While in Europe, the ranting became humorous as all you lsiten to is American Rock and see imitation of American culture.
And, we Americans drive large cars because we travel hundreds of miles when we travel.
Not because we are fat.
This is utter nonesense and popular anti-US garbage.
If we were to do this in Europe, we would pass through 2 or more countries.
So be proud, drive whatever you need.
It is absolutely ridiculous to say that people who like small cars and advocate for their use are somehow un-American. Small car advocates aren’t trying to stuff people unwillingly into teeny-tiny cars or contributing to the “constant drumbeat against American style and taste.”
It isn’t class warfare or anything of the sort. Some people like small cars, some people like big cars. Most people would be very well served with a midsized or smaller car, and saying this is not an attack on America, but it might seem so to somebody who has pigeonholed all Americans as the “bigger is better” set. You don’t need to feel threatened just because some folks have different tastes. America is a great big country with a wide variety of tastes and needs, and not everybody who likes small cars and suggests taking one for a test drive is a pinko hippie who wants to force you to drive one, too.
Personally, my main problem with how small cars are viewed in the US is the domestic automakers continued, blatantly false assertion that Americans don’t like small cars, when as can be seen anywhere, the Corolla and Civic are top ten sellers every year. If the US automakers hadn’t botched things so badly by forcing small car buyers into penalty boxes 20 years ago, the Cobalt and Focus could easily be enjoying the same sales success. Still, both of those cars are now competitive offerings and sell pretty well.
Drive whatever you want, build whatever cars you want. Just don’t lie and say Americans don’t want small cars when they buy hundreds of thousands of them every year.
jake… well said.
It always surprises me how folks use a small set of data to make broad conclusions. A top ten list? That’s like basing the goodness of a recipe on the first three ingredients.
The big point is that folks are considering smaller vehicles as family vehicles where in the past, size dictated safety.
If you doubt me, feel free to compare the compact and subcompact market to the SUV and minivan segments. Two are down a bit. The other two have been ‘decimated’.
I’ve always liked small cars (just helped my nephew move my brother’s old ’63 Mini that may never get restored), but you can’t take a family of five camping with a popup trailer using a Honda Fit or Mazda 3. Hell, in 2001 we ended up getting an Explorer instead of a Cherokee for the space for camping gear.
Compact car owners are fine with me. It’s when they start trying to tell other people what they “need” that I have a problem. I’m proud we still (used to anyway) live in a country where people can decide what they “need” or “want” as opposed to other civilizations where those things are decided for them. They may be happy with their lifestyle, but I’m just as, if not more, happy with mine as well. When these people complain about my way of life it leads me to think that maybe they’re not as happy as advertised…
As for those who say they would be SAFER if everyone was in smaller vehicles, they’re no different than those who buy larger vehicles so they can be SAFER. The only difference is one group wants their safety handed to them at someone else’s expense while the other group is proactive in ensuring their own safety at someone else’s expense. Don’t bitch about people buying large vehicles out of fear, when you want them off the road because of your own. No one hears motorcyclist demanding all vehicles that don’t have two wheels removed off the road. Why? Because they accept the risks.
I find it odd that fans of large cars/trucks/SUVs claim offense at being “told what to drive” when so many automatically dismiss small cars as “craptastic”,”shit boxes” etc and the people driving them as dorks, penny pinchers and too stupid to desire “better”. All insults hurled knee jerk style at people who actually prefer small cars.
And these attitudes have existed since the first compacts and imports appeared on the scene, so,I would suggest the owners/operators of large vehicles were on the defensive from the first for whatever reason.The general attitude that smaller is inferior has driven much of consumerism, so really the people taking all the shit are the ones who have pursued more prudent monetary goals in the first place.
Lots of intolerance on both sides of the argument.
Just because it’s small doesn’t automatically make it a shitbox. Nor because it’s large it’s “better”.
For the money, buying a Costco membership and using their car rental service for the occasional large vehicle rental makes a lot of financial sense.
For insurance, I used my American Express card. They offer a optional car rental policy that covers everything in a large way. That allows me to decline the rental coverage with better terms for a fraction of the cost.
So if you have to take a 2000 mile trip, rent a SUV. At the end of the year, how much less is that costs versus payments, depreciation, taxes and maintenance on your own large SUV?