If we look to the development of cars in general, and put that in a historical context, there are two things that follow each other like hand in glove. A cycle of oil crisis with drastically increased prices in gas, followed by a surge for smaller, more fuel efficient cars.
In the UK, the Suez crisis of 1956 lead to the development of the BMC Mini and Hillman Imp. The demand for smaller cars were stronger than the market could deliver. In the few years before the Mini, sales of the so called bubble-cars skyrocketed and the English automakers saw fit to close that gap to the inferior competitors. The US auto makers weren’t really into fuel efficient cars at the time, so Volkswagen made good fortunes of that wide open window of opportunity and became the best selling car in the world doing so. The 1973 oil crisis led to the American down-sizing, the Chevrolet Chevette, the Dodge Omni, and the Ford Fiesta. Though the Americans continued making the biggest gas guzzlers the world has ever seen, among them the humongous 7mpg Lincoln Mk V.
In Europe, people abandoned larger cars and made the Volkswagen Golf sized class of cars the best selling formula to date. In 1979, the American auto makers was yet unprepared for another fuel crisis, which almost sank the Chrysler Corporation altogether. Spiraling sales of Japanese imports in the 70’s made way for the ascent of the Toyota Corolla and Honda Accord, among others, creating a market that has only increased dramatically with time. And yet, the Americans continued making gas guzzling SUVs. The recent spike in oil prices led to an ever increasing demand in hybrids like the Toyota Prius, and skyrocketed the price for twenty year old beaters like the Geo Metro/Suzuki Swift into the absurd.
So, there’s a pattern. In times of fuel crisis and high gas prices, people demand smaller more fuel efficient cars. When the prices decrease, people feel less threatened and demand bigger cars. And the auto makers are only too happy to oblige, as they can make a bigger profit per units sold the bigger and more expensive the units get. The question is, if people can live with smaller cars in times of crisis, why can’t they live with them all the time? Why not always live as if the prices were going up? Why not make it more difficult to buy larger cars than the people really need? Should auto makers always only “make what people want” and to hell with that crock of shit? And how big do the cars have to be, to fill the need of the people?
Do we really need cars that makes less then 30 miles per gallon? Do people really need to commute in SUVS and trucks? Or even a Toyota Camry? Forget the notion of Toyota’s bulletproof quality and service, or BMW’s bench mark performance. I’m talking of real day to day practical needs. If bigger cars were abandoned altogether, I’m sure Toyota would fill every need anyway, and I’m equally sure that BMW would make the most performance oriented cars in that class in any case. What I’m after is, what do people really do with their cars, how do they use them, and what is an appropriate standard, in relation to excess. How much is enough? How big is big enough, but not too big?
Do commuters really need bigger cars than Smarts and Corollas? Do soccer-moms really need a Ford Expedition or even a Flex to haul the kids and ice-hockey gear? Do we really need mini-vans with V6-engines, or has that class grown too big with time? Business people need their trucks, but do people who don’t own a business really have the need for a truck on a day to day basis? Or could people share? Perhaps have a small commuter and save the trucks for weekend occasions, when the truck is really needed? The point of having a gas guzzler tax, is to make it more difficult for people to buy gas guzzlers. If the tax is not implemented on light trucks for private people, then it is irrelevant. There needs to be an incentive for people to switch from trucks to cars. That the Chrysler PT Cruiser is designated as a light truck is an insult to all intelligent people.
So, what’s the solution? I don’t know; you tell me? But a good start would be to make it more difficult to buy a larger car than you really have the need of. And make it easier to down-size and have a smaller car than you perhaps would be comfortable with. A gas guzzling tax in different steps, for cars and trucks less economical than say 30 mpg. The bigger the car, the more expensive it should be to own. The money could be used to subsidize the development of new technology. If GM wants a $7500 tax deduction for the Volt, there would be plenty of money at hand from such taxes. The point would be to make that credit available for all makers of hybrid technology. Tax the bigger cars and subsidize the smaller ones. And let nature have its course.
No.
How big a car do we need? Who knows. In a free country people buy the car they want, if they have the money. Let’s keep it that way.
Well keep in mind, WE ALL ARE NOT SHORT PEOPLE.
I’m taller than 6’6 and I know people my height and taller. In fact, if we took measurements of this entire country I’m sure a good 30% of the country might be taller than 6’0
The larger the people – the larger the car needs to be/ or, the more people in the family, the larger the car needs to be.
SUV’s were popular because they were great for big families and for hauling stuff. The only reason they lost popularity is because of the so called fuel crisis. If they could make a water fueled Expedition or escalade – they’d still be just as popular as before because in some cases they are a neccessity.
As for sedans, the only cars i feel comfortable in are the 300, Camry, S550 and new Eclass. Its up to the free market to decide what size cars are.
The larger the people – the larger the car needs to be/ or, the more people in the family, the larger the car needs to be.
I’m taller than you are (6’8″ at least measure; I shrunk an inch, it seems) and I drive a Honda Fit and have found ultimate comfort in the Kia Rondo, Honda Element, Nissan Versa and Cube, while I can’t manage to comfortably drive many larger cars and several trucks because the roof is low or the steering wheel too large.
Dude, you must be the tallest Armenian in the world!!
I’m 6’2″ w/a 36″ inseam, and am perfectly comfortable in my ForTwo (actually has the best H-point to A-point relationship and leg-room of any car I’ve ever owned. (And I have at least 2″ of unused headroom in this sunroof-equipped – thus loses an additional 1″ of headroom – car.
At the other extreme, I knew a guy, Barry Crowe, he is a compact fellow. I remember, in the mid-70’s, he had a ’73 Galaxy 500 (maybe Galaxy, but not LTD) that was totalled in a crash. He replaced it with a Pinto. Swore up and down that the Pinto seat could be moved back so far that he couldn’t reach the pedals, a feat he had not been able to achieve in his Galaxy 500.
“He replaced it with a Pinto. Swore up and down that the Pinto seat could be moved back so far that he couldn’t reach the pedals, a feat he had not been able to achieve in his Galaxy 500.”
I have a ’97 VW Cabrio and I’m 5’11”. I can move the seat back so far I can’t bottom the clutch on the carpet.
Really? I drove a Honda Fit for 1 year, and found it incredibly uncomfortable at only 6’1. The seat is tiny, awful thigh support, and doesn’t slide back far enough for comfort. Also had an Element before that, and found the legroom barely adequate. My GF drives a Versa, and I avoid having to drive it anytime I can thanks to the limited legroom.
That said, I’m long legged (35″ inseam) but my torso isn’t that tall, so I couldn’t care less about headroom. I’m in a ’11 Scion tC now, and find the legroom and headroom to be just about perfect.
As only 6’1″ and having owned a 1981 Continental Mark VI before graduating High School, I have to say that my experience with the car was enough to turn me green. 7-9 mpg was the norm, the digital speedo worked when it felt like it, it was god-awful in the snow and as far back as I pushed the driver’s seat, I was still too tall to be driving it. Big cars are not built for big people, it just seems that way to average people.
@ dolorean23, it’s MORE than a bit of a disingenuous to talk about whether people need the big cars of today, and be using the 1981 Lincoln Mark VI as this article does, and that’s another bone I have to pick with TTAC and writer Ingvar. There’s no comparing the large cars of over two decades ago with today’s large cars. That Lincoln Mark VI’s successor today would be a 2010 Lincoln MKS. It’s more fuel efficient even in an AWD configuration and roomier than the 1981 Mark VI, yet parks in a parking space that in 1981 would be sized for an ’80 Lincoln Versailles (if any remembers that car).
The Versailles? Sure, that was the Lincoln variant of the Granada, what was considered a compact car. I do agree with you that big cars of yesteryear are different than those of today; however, my issue with this article is that we assume “cars” when we should include Trucks. Those who bought the Lincoln Continental Mark V in the late ’70s are the same type of person who buys an Escalade EV or Ford F-250 today. The argument can be made for both for necessary work that these vehicles are designed to do such as pulling a boat or trailer or for farm/ranch use. The majority of the time these vehicles never see the CL IV hitch utilized or have a bed full of fertilzer. They are fashion statements, which has no emphasis on practicality or mileage, only hubris.
@dolorean23, on that I can only look to my neighbors. Only about a fourth of them don’t tow anything with their pick-ups or big suv’s. Four of my neighbors have business that they use their trucks for, and except for that one-fourth, the rest have boats or campers they tow with.
As far as the rest, if that’s what they want to use for daily use, I don’t see where it’s anyone else’s concern what they drive. Even these people aren’t the Mark V type.
i assume the author is not american… it is a brave article and yet 100% correct
i notice that this forum like others sneers at cars like the Tata Nano yet this is exactly the kind of car the whole world needs
you notice how the vast majority of cars are driven by one person… it is even rare for two people to be in a car
and yet we buy cars based on our MAXIMUM needs… and that means 4,200lb SUVs and vans
i strongly believe in advanced lightweight materials go hand in hand with new engines
i also think most of us do no need a car bigger than a Ford Fiesta
but it takes a massive cultural change
meanwhile i have a 4,000lb 400hp car to get to work in
psarhjinian
You “have found ultimate comfort in the Kia Rondo, Honda Element, Nissan Versa and Cube…”
Damn, and I spent all that money on the Bridge of Weir leather seats!
Me thinks you exagerate.
Europe still manufactures plenty of gas guzzlers, but they are reserved for the upper classes.
It is about want, not need.
Do we need to eat anything except raw vegetables to survive? Do we need more then 3 TV channels (or TV at all?)? Do I need to make more then minimum wage to get by?
Why do you care if people want or drive inefficient cars? Live your life the way you want and stay out of everyone else life if their actions aren’t directly effecting you.
Should you make it harder for people to get trans fats? Should you tax obese people? This hurts people directly more then burning an extra 6 mpg will hurt the environment or economy.
+1 Rusnak_322. I couldn’t agree with you more.
Economics is not just about simple supply and demand. Part of the problem here is that your big car is affecting me and everybody else, and your simple notion of “I am free to do as I please- thus the market is a perfect mechanism” does not hold as long as your consumption affects me. I don’t mean to offend, but, there is more than the “free market” argument at work.
the fact that so many people equate the ‘free market’ with freedom and democracy is just crazy
‘free markets’ are amoral; they do not assure good or bad, but because actors don’t have an equal power or influence (us minions are on the loosing side of that), without any regulation those with capital usually take advantage of those of us without much of it (again us)
Let’s look at the history of unregulated ‘free markets.’ In Victorian, industrial England you were ‘free’ to either starve or work in factory for 10 hours, risk your life daily in an unsafe work place (dangerous machinery and open chemicals like mercury), kids we’re ‘free’ to work in these dangerous conditions too (or starve too), and everyone went home to just about the worst unsanitary slums. In fact, free-markets were tamed when the masses got the vote, and reflect the rise of the Labour party in the country.
+1 Rusnak_322. I agree with you 100%.
teknight, you have offended, as I don’t give a damn how you, or anyone else, perceives how my big American sedan affects you, or anyone else. If you perceive that my consumption affects you in some negative, tough. As long as I can afford it, I’ll drive what I please. As long as some sanctimonious, self-righteous do-gooder thinks they can change the system to make it more expensive for people to drive what they want, then lookout – a lot of us will be lining up, to put our boot to someones backside.
It’s probably not a popular view on this site, but–you’ve got to get it in your head that everyone shares this planet and its resources. If you choose to choose to be the single occupant in your behemothic SUV every day, everyone else has to breathe in the CO2 emitted–they don’t have a choice. So I think it’s a little irresponsible to say you’re going to buy whatever you fancy. By all means, you’ve worked hard for your money and should enjoy it, but you also have a responsibility to the other inhabitants of this planet to consider what your environmental impact is when making choices.
@carsncars, my responsibility to the other inhabitants of this planet ends when it conflicts with my responsibilities to my family. When it’s a snow laden February, and it’s your elderly mother calling you, freaking out because your elderly father fell down and couldn’t stand up, and the ambulance is taking him to the hospital, you can tell me how my ” responsibility to the other inhabitants of this planet” out weighs my responsibility to get my butt out of my subdivision, and to the hospital fifteen miles away, so my mother doesn’t have to be by herself for an inordinate amount of time. Or the twelve time, over three separate winters, we had similar emergencies with my now late mother-in-law, culminating with a call from the senior living complex (independent living) she lived in, during a heavy snow storm, that she hadn’t checked in with the front desk, that she was found semi responsive and not making sense, and that WE had to come get her and take her to the doctor. Like my wife and I were A) going to make it twelve miles away in small car, with the snow coming down at the rate of an inch an hour, and then take her to her doctor, then follow the ambulance to the the first hospital, then to the second hospital, for the beginning of a year long “end” from advance dementia. Then the fourth, and final winter, with a call in the middle of the night on New Years Eve, after yet another monster snow fall, that we had better come to the nursing home quick, because she didn’t have long. Like some B class car was going to get us through eight inches of snow, out of the subdivision. We got there literally minutes before she drew her last breath. Then the next day, we had to go to the funeral home, on New Years Day, with the streets unplowed, to make arrangements. Then you tell me how ” responsibility to the other inhabitants of this planet” outweighs my responsibility to my family.
It’s not that I mean to be rude, but the idea of other people’s judgmental attitude about what size car any of us drive, and the crap, and I do mean crap, about the other people on the planet, and how much Americans consume, and the rest of the sanctimony, is nothing short of intruding into people’s person business. Everyone has their reasons for what they want to drive. Everyone’s reasons are A) their own business, and B) infinitely valid for themselves, and not subject to review by anyone else.
Not to mention that I don’t find my self feeling safe at all (as I mentioned in another post) driving around in s small car with so many large vehicle on the road. Responsibility to the planet also ends with my responsibility to myself. One of my old college professors defined “selfishness” as “an intelligent concern for ones own affairs”.
YES!
You get it and I feel better knowing a few do and I am not alone.
The entire philosophy is hubris!
People make choices they believe make themselves holy.
Then they begin finding others to join with them, thus further confirming their own goodness and righteousness
NEXT you start vilifying others who don’t think, act or live like you.
If in fact anybody really believed as they say, they would be living totally different lives.
The believers in the afterlife would be living self-imposed lives of poverty, helping all others live without suffering.
If you were truly and environmentalist, you wouldn’t consume beef or pork.
Its all lies.
But they don’t…they hoard, sin and then self hypnotize each other into feeling good.
They don’t walk the talk.
They try to justify the difference.
@TrailerTrash – buddy, I am so sick and tired of the sanctimonious, self righteous attitude of these self appointed supervisors of our purchases, it makes me ill. I’m seriously grateful that I’m not physically in front of some of these hypocrites, because I’d probably smack ’em in the head. Hell, I find their philosophy and attitude so offensive, that I would probably go ahead, and pick a fight, just to knock ’em on their rear ends.
My parents are from Malta, Europe, and we have relatives that visit regularly. I even have family that was born here or in Canada, and emigrated to Malta. Not one of my relatives has a critical comment to make about Americans propensity to buy large cars. In fact, when they visit, they comment about impractical it is to use small cars for most family use. They love the comfort, and yes, safety, of the big cars. In fact, I find the sanctimony and self righteousness only coming from a bunch of jealous hypocrites.
Len_A: The same to you my friend. You are the polar opposite to the “sanctimonious, self righteous attitude of these self appointed supervisors of our purchases”, which makes you, what, a sanctimonious, self-righteous person who feels he should be able to drive a combine to work if it suits his wallet and his own sense of self-importance.
I’m not targeting you personally here. The issue is most cars and trucks are bought for the image they portray, regardless of size. Many buy a Navigator because they want that “I got money” image and, Len_A, let’s face it, very few people buy a Navigator or an Escalade to go off-roading or for a contracting job. Of course you are correct that many who buy a Prius do so, so they may say they actually care about the Earth or gas mileage or whatever. Bottom line, if you’re happy with what you drive, good for you. However, I for one and real sick of seeing some a-hole bitching about gas prices filling up his SUV on the TV news. Or the same guy whining about the air quality of Phoenix in the summer time. Sometimes you reap what you sow.
Len_A: The same to you my friend. You are the polar opposite to the “sanctimonious, self righteous attitude of these self appointed supervisors of our purchases”, which makes you, what, a sanctimonious, self-righteous person who feels he should be able to drive a combine to work if it suits his wallet and his own sense of self-importance.
I’m not targeting you personally here. The issue is most cars and trucks are bought for the image they portray, regardless of size. Many buy a Navigator because they want that “I got money” image and, Len_A, let’s face it, very few people buy a Navigator or an Escalade to go off-roading or for a contracting job. Of course you are correct that many who buy a Prius do so, so they may say they actually care about the Earth or gas mileage or whatever. Bottom line, if you’re happy with what you drive, good for you. However, I for one am real sick of seeing some a-hole bitching about gas prices filling up his SUV on the TV news. Or the same guy whining about the air quality of Phoenix in the summer time. Sometimes you reap what you sow.
dolorean23, buddy, I’m neither sanctimonious, nor self righteous. Like a lot of people, I have occasional need for the passenger and/or cargo space of a big car, and I see no reason to give up the safety of my large car just because it’s a bit less fuel efficient than a smaller sedan. I’m indignant at the idea that since I drive by myself 90%, I should have to justify my choice. It has zero to do with any idea of my “own sense of self-importance”, and that sentence, by itself, in your post is what triggers my indignation.
You harp, along with others, about people buying Navigators or Escalades, which is complete bullsh*t. The majority of large cars sold are middle of the road average. Expedition XLT’s, not Limited’s. Sienna LE’s, not XLE’s, and even fewer Limited’s. Most Yukon’s I see are XL’s, not Denali’s, and I see far more Yukons than I do Escalades, and far more Expeditions than I do Navigators. I see far more Flex and Edge SEL’s, than I do Limited’s of either model, and far fewer MKX’s and MKT’s than Flex or Edge. Focusing on the more expensive vehicles doesn’t help your arguement. Makes your arguement’s motive more like class envy than anything else.
All the “care about the Earth” is a lot of talk to justify telling other people what to do. Most of the people I know who buy a vehicle like a Navigator, or Expedition, or Flex, or Traverse are families who need the seating capacity. All the talk of alternative is a lot of judgmental B.S. by people who not only want to tell people what to drive, but dictate whole families lifestyles. I live in a subdivision of 125 homes. We have eight contractors or landscapers in my subdivision alone. Another ten of my neighbors tow a boat or a trailer. Of all the rest, only a dozen of us are either childless couples or single. No Navigators, no Escalades, no fancy pickup trucks. One Cadillac CTS, which is NOT a big car. One Cadillac STX crossover, a grandmother who has her three grand kids with her almost every weekend in the summer, and two weekends a month the rest of the year. There’s also One Prius owner, who got rid of her Voyager minivan only AFTER her kids were grown, and now all three kids have their own cars. We had two other hybrids, but both those owners, one Highlander Hybrid and one Prius, got rid of them because they weren’t cost efficient enough (and they both got mid size crossovers, both Ford Edge’s).
That’s it, but the sanctimonious, self righteous attitude of these self appointed supervisors of our car purchases want to tell us how to live. Screw that. People have had enough of being dictated to, by those in this country’s political left and green movement members, and especially by Europeans who know nothing of our lives.
I’m neither sanctimonious, nor self righteous.
I think you might want to look up some words in the dictionary.
Yeah! You liberals are trying to take my guns, and now you want my truck too? I don’t care what happens if all 6 million people on this planet drive an Expedition- I will kick your butt buddy
(just kidding, don’t freak)
You’re headed down a very slippery slope to suggest federal government policy that overrides market demand for vehicles. A resounding NO!!!!
BTW, a Mark V w/ 460 cid was not a 7 mpg car, more like double that. I both sold many and owned one. The fuel crisis in the late seventies was one of supply, not price escalation. It was often overlooked by buyers trading to small cars back then that the effective range a small cars owing to their much smaller fuel tanks wasn’t any more than full size gas guzzlers. If you couldn’t buy gas you weren’t going anywhere in either.
The best I can figure out is that the EPA rating on the Mark V was 10 mpg in the city — maybe you could find more details on that in your archives? In any case, in an Auto Motor und Sport real-world test they averaged 7.5 mpg.
To reach the 600-mile range of its contemporary Rabbit diesel, the Lincoln would have needed an 80-gallon (310L) fuel tank … maybe that was hidden inside the fake spare tire hump?
Take it from the guy who owns one, they easily get 13mpg on the highway. This was before E10 blending, but even with boneheaded 1970s technology that thing will go above and beyond its supposed fuel economy figures. Credit the 2.50:1 final drive for that too.
Point is, size isn’t the be all and end all of economy, technology (and gearing) does.
Town Cars and Mark V’s would without question get more than 7.5 mpg. Using the Rabbit diesel as a comparison isn’t valid as its sales represented only a tiny fraction of the compact cars sold back then. You using a best casw possible comparison scenario vs. a real world one.
Are you fricking kidding me? I hope this is a joke. People should buy what they want in a free country, end of discussion. Next you’ll be wanting to limit the size of houses, control our thermostat, etc. I mean, we only need two pair of clothes, one to wear and one to wash. And only one car per family. And one kid per family, too.
For that matter, who the hell needs new cars. We have enough cars on the road today, plus a robust parts and repair market. You can basically keep any newish vehicle running for decades, with periodic rebuilds. Go, Commies!!!
Next you’ll be wanting to limit the size of houses, control our thermostat, etc. I mean, we only need two pair of clothes, one to wear and one to wash. And only one car per family. And one kid per family, too.
All excellent ideas. Now how do we make it happen?!!!
Just internalize all the costs of gas – wars, political instability, etc. When gas is at $9 a gallon, people will gravitate towards smaller cars.
Tony is also right. People tow a boat twice a year and buy a pick-up truck even though renting a truck for that need would be much cheaper. Combine that with macho posturing by insecure men and the constant fear-climate we live in where buying anything less than an M1 Abrams is practically child abuse… Well, I don’t really see small cars coming. Plus, the packaging we get in the US sucks – you can get the small 1-series in only a coupe form, the A3 and Mini come with too much weight, and the only decent budget option is the Fit.
I live in the Midwest, the mecca of the pickup (Don’t listen to Texans, they’re full of shit) and I see this attitude all too often.
People working at the same mine I do, for example, squander their paychecks buying 40k+ pickups which they drive alone with nothing in the bed or towing behind 99 days out of 100. For 40K they could get a vehicle which is faster, safer, more efficient, easier to live with (Even around here, parking pickups can be a pain, and if one more dually squeezes me on the roads, I’m going to go postal), more comfortable and just as capable in inclement weather.
Their reasoning behind this? They have a boat/snowmobile/dirt bike and “need” this gigantic pickup to haul their 2000 pounds of toys around. This is very strange to me, assuming that I used to haul a 20 foot fishing boat cross country with a 1985 Nissan pickup which had a lowly 115hp. Never once did I have a problem. Sure, I had to downshift sometimes, and I wasn’t going 90, but you shouldn’t be doing that with a trailer anyway. Though I didn’t have any, I am sure that this truck would have had no problems at all with a much lighter dirtbike or snowmobile.
People have gotten need mixed up with want. They WANT these vehicles, probably to add to their compensatory sense of machismo, they do not NEED them. Very few people do, and out of those, they would be much better suited with a stripped out work truck than a Ford F-350 King Ranch hand stitched elk leather edition.
+1
I had a 4 banger 2WD Ranger, and did more hauling, towing and off-highway exploring than all too many full size truck drivers I’ve seen. Even though I worked it to 90% capability, or more, I got 110+K on it no probs before trading (on a Forester)
Except you have to admit, with family+gear+tow, you do need something larger. Even if you only go on one vacation per year. It’s a bitch to drive around all that extra space and power though for most of the time when you don’t need it..
@skaro – that’s pretty much how I see it – you need what you need, even if it’s just occasional. Like you said, it’s a bitch to haul it around all the time, but there’s few practical alternatives.
Len_A – aw just tie all that stuff to the roof. -just kidding-
Some hilarious pics on the web showing what people tie to their roofs – safe or not. Enough lumber to build a shed tied to a Jetta comes to mind. So does the four wheeler on a sedan roof/trunk…
@joeaverage – Like I haven’t done that more than once! 3 trips to the former Forest City, five sheets of drywall each time, on top of a 1971 Ford Maverick! Dozens of 2 x 4’s resting on the vinyl top (with a sheet of cardboard underneath) on top of a 1973 Gran Torino. Repeated that trip twenty years later, from Home Depot, using the roof of my Dad’s 1998 Ford Escort station wagon (the one that just got wrecked).
Speaking of that, one of my more “brilliant” moves, ten years ago, was using my Dad’s Escort station wagon, we took a load of about twenty-four 12 inch garden wall bricks. Bottomed out the back end, all the way home. Damn good thing I only live a bit over 2 miles from Home Depot. LOL.
Hehe – yeah I’ve had times when a pickup truck would have been nicer. I have a problem with 2WD trucks though. I get them stuck. My ’49 Chevy got stuck on the edge of the driveway once. Just put a tire off the pavement onto the grass. No real difference between elevations. Grass was wet. Blanced a Mazda B2200 (?) with the HD suspension on opposite corners while turning around once over a 2″ traffic island. Nope, I’ve got to have a FWD or AWD or rear engined vehicle to keep me out of trouble… LOL!
Hauled home a fully assembled VW aircooled engine plus exhaust on the roof of my ’65 Beetle once time. Really screwed up the center of gravity! LOL. Also canoes on very small cars. Not good on windy days. Our current Cabrio just recieved a roofrack install. Attaches to the windshield posts and rollbar. Hinges forward to put down the top. Removeable of course. Bought it in the UK (mailorder). Mostly for hauling our bicycles but I’ve brought home 4×8 plywood and a storm door. Got a couple double take looks from fellow drivers. I like a challenge. LOL!
LOL, The PT Loser is classified as a light truck? That makes me hate the damn things even more.
“Do we really need cars that makes less then 30 miles per gallon?”
Ever see Batman Begins?
“We buy semi-automatics, they buy automatics…” (Commisioner Gordon).
It’s simple, the guy who gets beat by a V6 Camcordima is the guy who trades in his G6 for a V6 Malibu. If Nissan could make 280hp V6 Altimas that could get 30mpgs they couldn’t keep up with the orders.
Let’s not make this an American/European thing. I belive in equality for ALL people. Yes, there are gas-guzzling behemots in Europe too. And that’s not good either. Next point?
“I hope this is a joke. People should buy what they want in a free country, end of discussion.”
Then again, we are talking about a country that have handguns in every street-corner.
No, I don’t think people should always be able of buying exactly all the things that they want all the time. Trans-fats are bad. Steering people away from bad fats into good fats is a good thing. As long as it’s profitable destroying this earth, people will do so out of free will. The thing is to make it unprofitable to be bad, but profitable to be good.
Exactly. Left to their own devices, the vast majority of people are short-sighted, impulsive, and self-destructive.
Firstly, those street corners are here in places like Chicago where the handguns are in the pockets of criminals and gang-bangers because our legislative betters won’t allow us law abiding citizens – known colloquially as “sheep to be shorn” – to possess them.
And I suppose you and paul_y are just the ones to tell us what IS good for us? Or maybe people like esteemed climate scientist Dr. Pachauri, who tell us we should forgo ice cubes in our water to save energy yet:
“So strong is his love for cricket that his colleagues recall the time the Nobel winner took a break during a seminar in New York and flew in to Delhi over the weekend to attend a practice session for a match before flying back. Again, he flew in for a day, just to play that match.”
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/let_the_peasants_walk/
@ Rick T
Andrew Bolt is a NUT JOB. Like an Australian Bill O’Reilly9Sean Travesity-to-Humanity only more extreme. I wouldn’t go quoting him.
Those handguns are probably in circulation beccause people seek to defend their property against people who would seize it at the earliest opportunity…whether through a common street robbery or through government-mandated seizure/draconian regulation that Ingvar seems to endorse.
” Exactly. Left to their own devices, the vast majority of people are short-sighted, impulsive, and self-destructive.”
But that self proclaimed “enlightened” minority in government isn’t? Because they can, like, uh, get someone to point a camera at them while they regurgitate drivel off a teleprompter and stuff….
What’s wrong with “handguns in every street-corner?”
Without handguns, the government will be hard to overthrow, and you have a much higher risk of starving to death.
How many were shot dead in the US, all these years combined? Try to compare that to the number of deaths of handgun free Soviet Union or P.R.China due to either starvation or presecution.
Do I need a big car? Not now and bought a Jetta TDI when that became apparent. However, when you have two kids and a dog to haul around you need something besides a VW Golf to drive around with. I would not expect that a European what get that given that they are more then likely to go with at best one and done and as a result are heading toward extinction.
Europe is also a small compact place where on a day to day basis Euros spend most of their lives trapped in an area the size of the Baltimore-Washington SMSA. The US and Canada are huge places where we go continental distances for work and pleasure. Try driving even you threesome family from Chicago to Denver in a Golf.
You have two kids and a dog to haul around, you say?
Sounds to me like Subaru has just the vehicle for you! In fact, they have a whole lineup of wagons and hatchbacks which would suit your needs perfectly, without consuming too much fuel or forcing everyone else off the road and parking lot with their massive dimensions.
In 1993, my parents and I went from Madison, WI to Seattle, WA in a Saab 900S coupe – which has similar interior room to a modern Golf – with luggage. It worked out well, the only issues that the Saab had were due to lack of engine power in the Black Hills of South Dakota (which wouldn’t be an issue in a modern Golf with the 2.5 liter 5 cylinder or torque-rich TDI diesel).
When I was a wee lad, I WAS the youngest member of a threesome family, and I spent a good many hours in the back seat of our family’s 1978 Honda Civic … a car much smaller than the current Golf, smaller than current Polo, smaller than a Honda Fit, etc. We went to Florida and back in that car. I had no issue with it and that was a great little car. I later got it as a hand-me-down and kept it until it fell apart.
Right now … I’m driving a Jetta TDI that is a lot more comfortable and has the same fuel consumption that the Civic had back then. I’ve driven this one 16 hours straight to and from vacation destinations with the car full of people and stuff and with a trailer behind it with more stuff. No issues. Fantastic car.
A compact car that can pull a trailer is my solution to the occasional need to haul around more stuff than will fit in a compact car. Works for me.
Where to begin to answer my critics here.
Littlehulkseter: First of all I only had one and dog and we do have 2007 Outback to go with the 2005 Jetta TDI. We took Subi to the Outer Banks last May and it was packed to the gills. It was ok but if we had a second child to bring it wouldn’t have been doable unless we got a top carrier which would of course increase fuel consumption to that of an SUV.
Sam: A couple of years ago my son and I took a little cross country road/golf trip in Car #3, a 2002 Eclipse convertible. Two golf bags worth of irons in the tiny trunk, the woods and my 51″ long putter on the back floor ant the luggage in faux backseat that we could only get in and out with the tip down. You go anywhere with any car if you want to make compromises.
Brian: You are only match a 1978 Civic with Jetta TDI? Who taught you how to drive? I get 50+ on the highway an 40 around town even with my mere 5.8 mile commute to work.
I would say my “autogreen” credentials are pretty good but they are choice I have made. They have dictated to me. When someone tells me that people choose the wrong product one thing come to mind: Nanny state Fascism. I care not a whit if someone wants to drive a Hummer. I might even think he is idiot for doing so but he has a right to be an idiot.
There is a lesson about the purpose of green advocates to be learned from the now infamous “hide the decline” E-mails, the bug filled computer code and the unreproducible results that has been revealed in the Climate Research Unit data dump. People who expound on what you should do and want to place restrictions on the common man’s ability to live a good life are truly the intellectual successors to Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Hitler.
Yeah, you have the right to drive what you want.
Until what you drive becomes dangerous, squeezing other people off the road with it’s huge girth and killing them in accidents due to it’s enormous weight.
At that point, your right to free choice is forfeit.
Angela
It sounds to me like you’ve made reasonable purchasing decisions – especially if you brought the wagon Jetta!
It was ok but if we had a second child to bring it wouldn’t have been doable unless we got a top carrier which would of course increase fuel consumption to that of an SUV.
A roof box is an excellent way to gain additional space when needed without increase fuel consumptions for the rest (90%?) of your driving. As many said before people often buy for the maximum need rather than for their majority need. Solutions like roof boxes, or hiring / sharing a vehicle for occasional needs is being clever.
This Christmas our 190K mile finally lost it’s factory water pump so we went to Grandma’s house in our ’97 VW Cabrio. That’s four people (two kids) and a dog in a tiny car with the trunk well organized with gifts and spare clothes for the kids. Dog bed in the convertible top well, dog between the kids. 100 miles each way and everyone was comfortable. Because renting a minivan would have cost $120 we did day trips two days in a row to have the holiday with both sides of the family.
Drove the same car several years back to Florida (~10 hours). Easy trip for two adults and a little kid. Car got ~35 mpg.
Our “big car” is a ’99 CR-V. It carries the four of us and dog easily anywhere we want to go. When we really want to carry alot of stuff (camping) or long distance vacations we take our Brenderup 1205S trailer. Locking top without any real MPG losses. Also weatherproof. Rated for ~1200 lbs but we seldom even come close to that.
Small cars are NOT hard to live with. Especially for daily commutes. I’d recommend a couple small cars for commuter duty with a minivan/SUV/crewcab truck for weekend projects/towing/longer trips. The extra room and power is nice but I don’t see the point of spending thousands of dollars every year driving a 15 mpg vehicle for commuter duty.
I don’t care what anyone else chooses to spend their money on except these days since we tend to make choices as a herd of sheeple – it does affect how we all live and the cost of everything. CarsNCars and OM617 makes alot of sense here.
joeaverage, enjoy your <bleeping> CR-V, thank you very much. I’ll continue enjoying my full size, all wheel drive Mercury, thank you very much, and I get considerably better than 15 MPG. I don’t need you or anyone telling me what to drive. Period. Screw this attitude about what I drive affects other people – tough. I am so sick of the holier-than-thou sanctimony, it’s making me sick to my stomach.
And while I’m at it, your 1999 CR-V’s replacement, over ten years later, grew – nearly two inches longer, two inches wider, and a couple of hundred pounds heavier. Even your non Detroit brand ‘small” cars are getting larger. Deal with it – the marketplace actually wants the room.
If every SUV in America was traded tomorrow for a Honda Fit or even God forbid an Aveo, gas would hit 90 cents a gallon in a month. So, what you drive does affect everyone else. Basing title and renewal fees on engine size in a meaningful way would be a start.
Gas is SO not based on demand. How much of the $250 that I paid today went to the various taxes? Supply is artificially controlled. Price is artificially manipulated by the spot & futures market.
If you really want to do something proactive, try limiting the number of chromed bugattis and Lambos that can be bought in the Arab nations.
This is effectively what Europe has done from the minute cars became a consumer good, rather than toys for the wealthy, and it keeps average car size down, efficiency up, increases pressure to actually sell decent small cars.
In the US, domestic-market small cars have traditionally been built as tokens, to make it easier for a salesperson to up-sell, and as such, are horrid machines. When the Fiesta hits the local Ford dealer, I am very tempted to, in fact, Drive One, just to see if it’s not a hateful penalty box. If it isn’t, I could seriously consider it for my next vehicle. If it is, I’ll keep buying Japanese.
Unsatisfied with the terrible (admittedly improving) vehicle choices in your local market? Vote with your dollars.
Rusnak
Limit the number of Bugatti’s and Lamborghinis?
How in the world does that decrease fuel prices on a global scale when those cars are such a small percentage of the total purchased vehicles?
I totally disagree with you. Supply and Demand DOES control oil prices. The Futures market is based around the belief that oil costs will be at a certain level of demand in the near future.
QUOTE OTTO – “I totally disagree with you. Supply and Demand DOES control oil prices. The Futures market is based around the belief that oil costs will be at a certain level of demand in the near future.”
Answer me this – what caused the great price increases that we saw a few years ago? Supply was not greatly changed, and consumption went down as the price kept increasing. So you have a stable supply and a decreasing demand, that should have caused the price to drop, but speculation caused it to keep increasing artificially. There was a worry that China was going to use up all the gas, people bought futures based on that. the demand never materialized and yet the prices have not dropped back to the original levels.
Rusnak – no, actually, consumption *didn’t* go down. Sure, some SUV-driving consumers may have cut their weekly trips to Costco, but the big energy users — the military, the airlines, trucking and rail and transit companies — simply couldn’t make major changes that quickly.
On the other hand, look at what happened when the global recession started: consumption DID decrease — not dramatically, but enough — and since oil is a very inelastic commodity, oil prices went screaming down.
There are cases where bigger cars at some level make sense even for one person. No small car that I have been in feels as comfortable after 10 hours as a big one. At the end of the day size is just one of the variables. In principle larger equals heavier equals needs more power, equals more fuel consumption but it need not necessarily be that way.
As for the Europe / smaller car argument, that’s not exactly substantiated either. Sure the Golf segment is booming however look at the size of the cars compared to where they started. Today’s Polo towers over an early Golf, equally the Jetta is larger than an early Passat. The same holds true for pretty much every manufacturer. In terms of interior space the advances are mostly much smaller – i.e. efficient space utilisation tends to be moving forward at a glacial pace, if at all. Making a 4.5m long car, weighting 1200kgs, with the interior room and bootspace of an S class, is a challenge no manufacturer is seemingly willing to face. Sure – it would cost every bit as much as an S class, possibly more, as it the development would require some proper intelligence being thrown at the problem. But it would surely be a proper step forward – not just taking the easy route of making it larger, heavier, dumber and in order to make it go throwing in a more powerful engine. I do hope Murray’s T25 is a proper success and that it spawns larger versions down the road, all based on the same philosophy of Collin Chapman – i.e. of adding lightness.
I own a Chrysler 300 and an S550 and frankly I think you are right.
The problem however isn’t the length and width of the car – the problem is the mass. Now that we are learning how to reduce mass of vehicles through carbon fiber and aluminum block engines – which may be replaced by even lighter materials in the future, we can begin attacking the mass of cars.
If you took an S550 and replaced every single part with lighter materials, I’d bet you could get weight down to 3000 pounds and it would get 30 miles per gallon.
The problem with the bloatiness of today is not structural mass, but all the insulation. Id’ guess that there’s at least 250 pounds of insulation in every car made today. That’s why the cars of today are heavier than the land yachts of yore. The near silent Lexus ride has a heavy price in larger mass.
Great Article, Ingvar. Also many great replies, esp. the one from the econ literate poster who advised to internalize the costs and have gas at its right price, $6 or $9 or whatever, which by itself will encourage those who do not need a 5,000 lb SUV every day to buy a Fit or even a Yaris.
“have gas at its right price”
History shows that governments setting prices does not work. There is no “right price” for gas.
The question is not just what you Want, but also what you Need, and what you can Afford.
The European model, where the more affluent can afford to buy the few luxo V8s and V12s and the masses are happy in 4-cyl 40-50 MPG small diesel compacts, is not that bad.
Whenever gas returns to $4 and $5 in the US, we may see 53,000 Civics and 50,000 Camrys and 40,000 Accords and 40,000 corollas push the F150 back ot 5th place, as they did in May 2008. Until then, it is quite different, Nov salesd of the Civic were a PITIFUL 13,000 plus change, and in fact even the CR-V sold more copies than the civic.
THe above amazing reversal may tell Honda and the other makers that consumers really want small WAGONS, and in t heir abzence they buy small crossovers with worse MPG and higher price..
he European model, where the more affluent can afford to buy the few luxo V8s and V12s and the masses are happy in 4-cyl 40-50 MPG small diesel compacts, is not that bad.
Ever ask an average European if they wouldn’t be happier if they could drive a luxo V8s and pay 1/5 th the price for gas like an American? The phrase “let them eat cake” caused a major revolution, and I foresee “let them drive crappy diesels” eventually doing the same.
Then again, we are talking about a country that have handguns in every street-corner.
Keep in mind there’s a large number of people that think that’s a good thing. I’ll leave out the obligatory Hitler reference to gun control. Let’s just say that what “works” in Europe isn’t necessarily good for USA. Bear in mind that there’s a big difference in average income between Germany, France, and the USA – which drives the small car/one car per family Europe model. It’s not just gas prices driving this.
Great article, Ingvar. But I have a sneaking suspicion that everyone likes the big cars, from their performance to being a status symbol. It’s part of the Human Ego.
You can’t regulate that out of existence, especially in America. And our politicians aren’t stupid enough to hit that hornet’s nest with a baseball.
Yeah, I get that. I mean, I want a Mk V as well. Has there ever been a more quintessential land yacht? The point is not to regulate it out of existence, but make it more difficult to use in excess. In Europe, gas is 8 dollars a gallon, nobody in their right mind would use a Mk V as a commuter on a daily basis. The point is, if it were just a little bit more expensive to be be bad in the US, and right as rain, people would pile up six deep in the queue for a new Honda Fit. Out of free will.
Ingvar,
Let me fix that for you:
More difficult to use “except by wealthy people.”
As long as they pay for the luxury of using their wealth to leave this world in tatters. I’m not against the filthy rich as such, I just believe they can afford to pay for being stupid, and pay for the rest of us sensible people being smart at the same time.
Yeah… saying stuff like that is saying we are animals who can’t overcome our base impulses. I don’t let ego determine my car buying preferences. I pick what I personally like. Plus the fact that everytime I see some dude in an Escalade or SUV, I automatically think douchebag. The guy in an old boxy Volvo wagon has nothing to prove to anyone.
For that matter do we need more than one auto manufacturing company?
Absolutely, without direct competition there’s no reason for any buisness to provide good service/products because you can’t go anywhere else to get what the’re offering.
Leading with the loaded word “need”, and then asking how people’s behavior should be controlled to limit them to some level of need determined by an elite class , has the earmarks of socialism.
Then of course the author is assuming a value judgement that smaller cars are good and gas guzzlers are bad without any justification. Why?
Otherwise it’s a reasonable history on how the free market deals with supply shortages. Should have left it at that.
Smaller cars doesn’t necesarily have to be good. But if smaller cars were all there was, don’t you think good small cars would be developed?
Yes
“Leading with the loaded word “need”, and then asking how people’s behavior should be controlled to limit them to some level of need determined by an elite class , has the earmarks of socialism.”
What’s wrong with expecting your fellow citizen to do the “right thing” without gov’t intervention???
We go on about the wrongs of gov’t intervention but without it we’d have a country just like Victorian England with the rich taking advantage of every person and consuming everything they could lay their hands on and to Hell with the rest of us… Reference the history of the past decade for reference. People choosing to send jobs out of our country for a little more profit to them and to Hell with the rest of us.
I’ll take a little good gov’t regulation from time to time. Just a little. Thanks… Of course in reality our gov’t OUGHT to be able to get all the necessary regualtion into place and then go home with nothing else to do but it doesn’t happen that way… Got to keep making new laws needed or not.
Government is already involved enough in the business of trying to regulate what we buy in the way of cars, we don’t need more. The price of fuel is going to drive what people want more than anything else. As long as it’s perceived as affordable, people are going to want what they want, regardless of how much regulation the government throws at it. The last thing we need is more new laws.
I think people mistake outerior size for interior size. I’m 6’tall and fit in every small car comfortably as driver or front passenger. so that is not an argument. how does a 6′ hood help me with that? that is wasted space and mass. At work we have some fit and plenty of ford Taurus etc. guess which car is better for hauling stuff? the fit due to its smart foldable seats and hatch.
I understand some people have 5 kids and may need a Minivan. Possibly as second vehicle and having a smaller vehicle for alone-commutes.
not only should cars be smaller, also should have less power. We have a Mazda 3 and 6 with 2.3 l engine. Way too much. In 1st and almost 2nd gera I can’t even push the accelerator allt he way down without front wheel spinning, especially now in winter. and 65-75 mph is maximum speed anyway. why do I need an engine than can get me to 120 mph? In Germany where ther is no speed limit on some parts people are happy with a 100 hp car.
I’m not saying that should be mandated, the market should decide what cars are built. as long as all the cost of gas (military, environmental) is properly taxed to the fuel. If you are rich and don’t care having a 10 mpg car… great. but the majority of people would chose 35 mpg cars. there should be some regulatory guidance, though (emission, safety etc.)
Good mileage only can be achieved with smaller cars. Sure we cna havve high-tech components and drive a lightly lighter SUV with hybrid powertrain. but would the majority of people pay $ 100,000 to get a 30 mpg SUV, or would they pay $ 30,000 for a 30 mpg Minivan (with some existing technology that would be easily possible)?
No matter what political spectrum you are in, oil is finite resource, biofuels are limited and come at great cost too. Electric cars will be expensive, when the cars are big even more. So the majority of people will have to buy smaller cars. Not regulated by government, just regulated by simple physics and nature. there always will be rich people that can afford a larger car. but the majority of people will have smaller cars (if any).
For that matter do you need (or own?) a house with more than 1 bedroom, kitchen and 1 bathroom? Otherwise, by the author’s logic, you’re wasting anything else for when you have guests, children, etc. You could extend this to anything, what a terrible article.
And that’s a good point. Do we really need all that stuff we spend our time and money ending up with? The guy who ends up with the most things win?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspicuous_consumption
Ingavr, clearly I was beign sarcastic. You obviously did not pick up on it, as you linked me a wikipedia article. Not the most scientific way to present your counter-argument.
Wikipedia is good enough for internet banter. This is internet, after all…
In our cultures, size matters. Whether it is cars, houses, diamonds, steak, bank accounts, female breasts, or male sex organs. Size gives status.
Some people get past that, and I admire them for it. But most of us, for the most part, judge others (and ourselves) by the size of the possessions we present to the world.
Ridiculous as it, that’s being human.
My solution is an older fleet consisting of vehicles I can maintain. Two 24 mpg daily drivers and a 12 mpg Jeep wag for very occasional utility. My eyes glaze over when new cars are being discussed. If new cars ceased to exist, it wouldn’t bother me a bit.
Agree completely. Buying a new, or even a near new, car/truck is fiduciary madness in my book. I’ll keep my 89 Four Runner and 87 Integra. Maintain them every few years, fix the rare and normal machine failures, keep driving. Pay virtually nothing compared to a new vehicle purchase.
I haven’t commented in a while due to a busy sked. But I’m going to have to chip in on this one. As a couple have said the author does not seem to be an American. Because if they were they’d know its a free country and we will drive whatever the hell we want, fuel economy be damned. And in case anybody forgot, the F-Series is still the best seller here, teen mpg and all. If you really want to make people forgo large cars just keep raising the operating price. If you think the MSRP, insurance, repairs and fuel econ. are cheap on a full size SUV I don’t know what to tell you. Seems to me that some automakers are on to this already, but I guess I’m digressing. We have a mountain of cheap (or not) throw away FWDs already, I don’t need any more of them.
I hate driving big cars. I don’t understand why you would want to pilot a house down the street, but most of us Americans seem to want to. I don’t really care about that, it is a free country after all… do what you want. But when gas prices do go up and you have to pay a few hundred to fuel up your canyonero, man up and quit your bitching! You did make a choice, and it is nobody’s fault but your own.
“History shows that governments setting prices does not work. There is no “right price” for gas.”
History shows nothing of the kind.
And What do you mean “they do not work”??
Your prices were always determined by Govbernments, just not your own elected government, but the 12 OPEC Governments since the 1970s. If they did not restrict their production, your gas prices would be quite different and mostly lower, from 1975-2009.
I’m speaking of the Soviet Union and Communist bloc countries where the government set the prices of everything. And of the times in the United States when wage and price controls were put in place. They didn’t work.
Markets have been the only reliable way to set prices. When governments interfere, the results have not been good.
The “RIGHT” price always has and always will direct the consumer towards the desired efficient vehicles far more than any sermon or idiotic CAFE regulation that has never worked in the past.
Free Markets at their best.
And maybe I spoke too early when I commended the early responses, some new ones are the predictable knee-jerk reactions from owners of large cars and SUVs in the US.
Here’s how I handle my needs. Because I am somewhat frugal, and don’t like the feeling of throwing money out the window while commuting 60 miles a day, yet I need a vehicle that can carry my various sporting equipment, I drive a relatively economical Subaru Forester. But I like a pleasure of driving a powerful car, so I also have a finely tuned muscle car with a 7.5 liter engine for pleasure driving.
My neighbor, with the identical commute, drives a BMW 550 because he needs a prestigious car for his professional image showing high end commercial real estate to well heeled clients.
My other neighbor drives a Dodge Charger with a Hemi to work. He needs it because that is his unmarked police vehicle and it must look conspicuously inconspicuous on the street and must be powerful when pursuing gangbangers onto freeways.
My other neighbor drives a Toyota Prius because he cannot carpool but is allowed to drive in the carpool lanes with the Prius. He needs to save time because he has to drop off his children at school.
My other neighbor drives cheap old cars because his business is struggling and he needs to save money. He cannot afford a Prius or other late model fuel miser.
With all of these different types of people with different needs, how do you propose an elite class can determine what our needs are and how to control them?
That’s actually very simple. Your two friends with a BMW 550 and Dodge Charger would pay extra for that “need”, money which would make your money saving friend able of buying a subsidized new fuel efficient small car, or even a hybrid. For you or your Prius owning friend, it would be status quo. But perhaps you too would wander over to hybrids, when Subaru was enabled of making a car suitable for you, or your friend would rather ditch his Prius for an equally priced Volt, that he actually wants.
No, here’s what would actually happen — the new Euro-spec fuel economy regulations would inevitably end up being based on politics, not fuel economy, and so *everybody* would end up paying more in taxes. The intent being, of course, to force them to buy Government Motors vehicles assembled in the home districts of influential lawmakers.
And just wait until some politician struggling for re-election reads about the “rare earth metals gap”…wow.
Ah what loaded questions, let me throw in my 2 cents.
I am currently about to finish making payments on a very basic Ford F-150 that I bought used. Not to commute in but to do many of the things trucks are supposed to do that I guess I could have rented one for. It is very utilitarian, has bench seats and power nothing, and it’s perfect. The only time I drive it for my commute is when it snows to badly to take something else or my other means of transportation is in need of repair.
I own a 150cc scooter that will hit 65mph and gets 70mpg. I drive it to work on days when I’m not carp00ling and the weather is decent, although I have ridden in weather as cold as 17ºF. I got it to save gas, and even though it is from a cheap Chinese brand, I have been very happy with it.
Most days I carpool to my place of work with my girlfriend who drives a 2005 Vibe with a 5speed manual, the two of us riding together is very environmentally friendly.
Next year I will likely be getting an administrative job (I’m a teacher finishing my masters degree) that will separate us and make it impossible to carpool. My plan? Go buy something like a Hyundai Accent (manual trans, manual windows, ect) and use it just to commute. Do I want a big car? HELL yes. Will I buy a big car? Someday, a used one. A monstrous, could-like ride, land yacht, used and I won’t buy it until I can pay for it without needing a loan. I’m not going to drive it all that much, I’m buying it to collect it, to drive and enjoy it on weekends and such.
I respect my fellow American’s choices but I think it’s patently rediculous for a 120lb soccer mom to be driving a 5,000 lb SUV.
That’s right. We’re entitled to drive something that gets 8MPG because we feel like it.
But don’t worry,we’re paying for it.
40 years and trillions down the toilet in the Middle East. Coups, election rigging, assassinations, direct military involvement. Pissin’ off the locals, then giving them money for oil. So they can try to kill us.
F’n brilliant.
We would have done all that stuff without the oil.
Which the majority of comes from the US, Canada and Mexico
I’d like to thank Ingvar for providing this stimulation topic for discussion.
Well, thank you. I couldn’t for my life believe this topic would be so controversial. From a group-dynamic point of view, TTAC is an interesting place. I think it’s valuable to have an outsider’s point of view, I guess I’m the outsider in this equation. It’s always refreshing seeing it from the other side.
I’ll support your tax/subsidize system on two conditions:
1. Change the rules so that the diesel engines available in the rest of the world are available in the US.
2. Change safety and import rules so that I can legally drive any car from anywhere in the world in the US.
I’d modify number 2 to say that a car has at least to pass EuroNCAP, Australian NCAP, NHTSA NCAP, Korea NCAP or Japan NCAP
Do I need a full-size car? Nope. Will I drive anything smaller than a full-size? No way. I don’t understand why anyone would willingly purchase a compact or sub-compact unless it’s an occasional use vehicle.
My Suburban and Park Avenue suit me fine. In fact, if I could buy a new car larger than my Park Ave, I would. A 1972 Oldsmobile 98 Regency is the perfect size in my book- 455 c.i. V-8 and room for the whole neighborhood.
Just think, the Ecoboost MKS probably weighs the same as the Mark V, has 150-200 more HP and gets 17/25 by the EPA.
We don’t need large cars, but we want them, and we will keep buying them.
“But a good start would be to make it more difficult to buy a larger car than you really have the need of.”
Wrong, wrong wrong.
God, I am tired of liberals who think they need to, or even can, social-engineer an answer to every perceived question by telling me what I can or cannot do, or by taxing me.
The simple solution is to do what ought to have been done a LONG time ago: No CAFE, no Luxury tax, no gas guzzler tax….simply a per-gallon federal tax on fuel to approximate the economic costs of ICE….do that, and the invisible hand of the market will function….people with means will still have the freedom to drive what they want….the larger cars will become more expensive, because tooling and manufacturing costs will have to be amortized over smaller volumes. Smaller cars will become better, because the market will become more competitive. Business owners will buy only the size vehicle which is cost-justified by their business needs. Life-stylers will have to decide if their desired vehicle is based on a life-long passion or on a short-term trend….
Why does this not happen? Two reasons. A gas-tax does not appear to be progressive, although in truth it is….those with the means to consume will consume and thus pay more of the tax. Liberals HATE the perception of rich people and the not-so-rich appearring to pay at the same rate, and they lack the intellectual depth to realize the truth beneath the surfave. The second reason is that Liberals are convinced that they know better than anyone else about what is good for America, for the world, and want to mind my business, instead of their own. They don’t trust a market to regulate itself.
As for me, I believe that in every issue, there is a happy medium or sweet spot where all manner of things can be solved. I see, as well as anyone else, the absurdity of a solo commuter in an Expedition or a V-10 Ram pickup with an empty bed, and realize the economic and environmental inefficiency of that. But the beautiful thing about America is that each of us is free to indulge, to the extent of our means, a little irrationality or inefficiency. Is it really hurting anyone? (Please don’t start your non-sense about the hole in the ozone layer and greenhouse gases. If Al Gore took his nonsense seriously, he wouldn’t be flying around the country in his Lear jet…..and if he doesn’t take it seriously, why should we?)
The size of car one chooses to drive, or the size of one’s house, should continue to be a matter of personal choice. Government policy (i.e, tax policy and regulatory policy) should be a matter of making certain that the costs of such choices to the individual truly reflect and include the costs to the overall society. In that, the simplest tools are usually the most effective. Institute a gas tax, let me make MY OWN economic choices based on those CONSISTENT premises, and don’t try and shield me (bailouts, expanding welfare and nanny state) from the consequences of making bad decisions, and then STAY THE HELL OUT OF MY WAY. I will happily choose the vehicle I think fits the balance of my life, my needs, and my wants best.
And if you don’t ‘approve’ of the size vehicle I choose? Remove the plank from your own eye, before you start trying to tell me I have a mote in mine…..
Amen! We need more leaders like you Mark, with a true open mind (but one whose brain hasn’t fallen out) and a clear, rational thought process.
+ 5,000,000 for that comment Mark. People will always choose what is best for them so the self interest of the consumer must be leveraged for any change to happen. Nagging or trying to guilt the public will get you nowhere. That is the reason why “Buy American” campaigns don’t work, why French wine continued to sell well during the freedom fries hysteria and why families will always prefer larger cars.
The enjoyment of cars really is to liberals what sex is to social conservatives: They are always worried someone somewhere maybe enjoying themselves in ways they don’t approve of.
Mark MacInnis +1
The simple answer is that politicians don’t want to introduce a “tax” because it’s believed to be unpopular with the voters. instead they are talking about cap & trade, which basically does the same thing but becomes open to corruption, costs a fortune to run and doesn’t generate any income.
Increased gas price (via tax) would (as last summer showed) change peoples habits and generate income that would help reduce the huge debt America has!
I’d be all fine with everybody doing their own things and making their own choices as long as like in this recession the bad choices of others come knocking on my door. Excess debt and greed…
As a self-confessed “liberal,” I call BS.
It’s the most sophomoric of debate techniques to say that “liberals are so stupid, they think they know better than everyone else.” Translated into English: “No matter what you say, everyone stick their fingers in their ears and shout LA LA LA LA LA.”
I agree that “government policy should be a matter of making certain that the costs of such choices to the individual truly reflect and include the costs to the overall society.” I am simultaneously a car enthusiast as well as a liberal (which I guess means I don’t exist). My car is neither small nor especially economical, if you must know the truth — and notice that I didn’t have to tell you that. But it’s not too much to ask that we all at least consider the consequences of our choices in a world that, deny it or not, is quickly running out of enough resources to support this many humans for much longer.
Ingvar – Great topic, and it’s nice to see the discussion stay civil. Very enjoyable and thought-provoking thread.
That said, I think maybe you’re asking the wrong question. Instead of “Do we need big cars,” how about, “Do we need fast cars”? Do we really need street cars that are capable of exceeding the posted speed limit on every public road in the country?
When you get right down to it, it’s pretty tough to make the arguement in favor of vehicles designed and built to allow their owners to consistently break the law. I think engineering to legal speeds only also solves the cost and efficiency side of the equation. If you can’t buy a street car that goes over, say 75mph, I assume most street cars could be designed to get much better mileage.
Don’t get me wrong; I’ve done Skip Barber school twice and my first two cars were a 1984 GTI (bought in 1994) and a 1988 RX-7 Turbo II. I’m certainly a fan of hoonage. But really – rationally and objectively – it’s a tough position to defend.
And those are good questions. I don’t have any answers, I just believe that the era of excessive wanton behaviour will end sooner than people might imagine. It was fun while it lasted, but I think it’s time to accept the thought that the party will soon be over. As I asked, how much is enough? How big is big enough? What is a sensible car, for sensible needs?
Ingvar: This is a free country. People make their own decisions on how to behave. Your “wanton, excessive behavior” might very well be my “ekeing out a bare existence”. You decide how you are going to behave, and I will decide that for myself.
William F. Buckley Jr. defined a liberal as one who wants to reach into your shower to adjust the temperature of the water. I see that desire in your article.
…and let me also add: If I choose to live in a smaller house in town so I can walk to the 7-11, and only use my one subcompact automobile a couple of times a week for absolutely essential errands, it will be because I want to, and not because Ingvar Hallstrom, Barack Obama, or Al Gore thinks I should.
I would like the choice of buying either small or large cars please.
I prefer small cars but I wouldn’t want to live in a place where buying a larger car would incur some kind of extra tax expense.
I would be willing, as long as finances agree, to pay more money for a finely finished small car
Most people want some cars, may need some other cars, but basically end up buying cars they can afford, whether they need them or not.
I do not hate either large or small cars, I enjoy driving a heavy, powerful German V8 (a 740iL 98) both around town and on the highway. It is probably heavier and far more powerful than the Mark V, and, more importantly for highway comfort, it has a far longer wheelbase. it gets 12-15 MPG in short city drives and 22-24 MPG on long highway trips at high speed.
In our summer home, my parents (now just my mother) have an old but low-miles, as-new Civic hatch 5-speed 91 model, a very lightweight, 1875 lbs or so, 75 hp, about 106 MPH top speed, only 45k miles, which is excellent on medium speed country roads and sivy traffic, quick but not fast. I appreciate that one as well. It gets actual 44 hwy and 35 MPG overall.
The civic is euro-spec, and due to the double gas prices there, it costs me about the same to drive here in the US as over there, the higher MPG offsetting wholly the lower price.
My commute in the US is short, so I can easily afford to drive the 12 MPG BMW, when I choose to drive (I frequently just walk or bike to work). But if I had a 120-mile a day commute, as did the previous owner of the BMW, I would probably decide to still drive the BMW or an S class or an LS460 with all the bells and whistles, since I would spend 10% of my entire life in that vehicle, plus safety concerns.
Re Houses vs cars, it is quite different, homes appreciate in the long run, while spending $100k on a new car is $ down the drain!
This post is on the money; the “free country” people are talking about is one in which the government subsidizes the price of oil as a convenience to the oil companies and American auto manufacturers. If the real costs of collecting oil from foreign countries were tabulated, it might not be $9/gallon gasoline, but it would be easily double the current cost.
Following the oil crises of 1974 and 1978, tax incentives were created which resulted in a huge change in our gasoline-buying habits. This was in lieu of developing sound policy which ensured that we relied only upon domestic sources for energy. The shortcut has now bitten back, and we have financed people and regimes who really do not have our interests at heart, so it cuts twice; we lost the opportunity to have a healthy GM, Ford and Chrysler building cars that fit the economic cycle and we’re involved in two wars to ensure we can continue to get “cheap” oil. The problem is it remains cheap only at the point of a gun.
How is the war in Afghanistan even remotely related to oil?
If the Iraqi war was about oil why aren’t we getting any of it?
@mtymsi,
Do you seriously need to be reminded that we are in Afghanistan because we were attacked by a terrorist group based there, which terrorist group’s main inspiration is anger over US troops “defiling the holy soil” of Saudi Arabia by being stationed there during the first gulf war, which was about oil?
As for us not benefitting from Iraqi oil, just because that (like just about everything else related to the Iraq invasion) didn’t turn out the way the rosy scenario white house neocons promised it would in 2003, doesn’t mean that wasn’t their motivation. Actually one could argue that while U.S. energy consumers not only haven’t benefited from but have been hurt by the Iraq invasion, oil companies and their ancillaries have done very well by the price spikes that the invasion caused. So maybe it was about oil, but not oil for you and me but higher oil profits for Exxon and Halliburton. I don’t personally subscribe to that conspiracy theory because I don’t think the supposed conspirators were smart enough to plan it the way it turned out.
I must admit I have either forgotten or wasn’t aware the terrorist attacks had anything to do with U.S. troops being stationed in Saudi Arabia during the first Gulf war. I have been under the impression the terrorists just hate us in general and not for that specific cause.
@mtymsi:
Here ya go:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Qaeda#Gulf_War_and_the_start_of_U.S._enmity
So to be “safer” than you, I find myself having to drive a larger car than you which is clearly NUTS and has a direct cost to the community and me…
Pete: Well said. When I drove an 88 Mark VII LSC, it weighed 3800 pounds. Today a Toyota Avalon is approaching that weight. The “upward weight spiral” of trying to one up the other has to end at some point. What was once a safe weight is now “unsafe” or “less safe” according to the bigger is always safer crowd. The “laws of physics” are so often quoted as justification, and if all other factors were equal that would absolutely be true. However, as typical in real life, there are a plethora of variables. Unequal ride heights plays a huge role. Whatever vehicle that rides under the crash structure of another is at a huge disadvantage, even the under-riding vehicle is heavier. Death rates in SUVs (collectively as a class) in single vehicle crashes way outstrips the death rate in single vehicle car crashes (again collectively as a class). This despite the weight “advantage”. Heavier large cars are usually more expensive, effectively limiting younger drivers which are a much higher risk group. Back in the day, the rollover death rate in 2 door Dodge Shadows was four times that of the 4 door variety. Only difference: 2 doors were purchased by a substantially younger group. Point is that mass is only one part of the equation. If somebody wants to put most of their value of safety in mass alone, far be it for me to tell them otherwise. But, please: Keep your mouth shut when filling your tank. Watching all those drivers on the news filling their 4500 pound vehicles and bitching about the spike in prices made me ill. You made your choice, chest beating, flag waving and all. Now pay up and shut up.
I see that a lot of our American friends are at it again here; they want to be free to consume whatever they like in any size they like, any time they like (and kill everybody who might be in their way). Well let me suggest that the freedom of consumption is not much of a freedom. Frankly it’s no more of a freedom than the freedom of a crocodile in Louisiana swamp to kill and consume the biggest creature he can catch. Is that the kind of freedom the citizens of the “Greatest country in the world” can offer its citizens?
And I see that our foreign friends are getting on their soapboxes again and feeling free to lecture -us- on how to live our lives. ra_pro, keep your enclosed roller skate and your $8/gallon fuel charges on your side of the pond and don’t try to make them a reality of my life here in America.
ra_pro, keep your sanctimony. My parents are from Europe, and find the idea of small cars in America as ludicicrous as most people born here. Frankly, I don’t care what the rest of the world thinks. We are free to consume whatever we like in any size we like, any time we like, and if you have aproblem with, it’s frankly your problem, not ours.
@ Len_A
it’s frankly your problem, not ours
With citizens like this the American economic “Empire” will be gone in another 25 years, maybe less.
The unsustainable “consume everything, always” approach has the US flat broke. Well done. You must be very pleased.
@PeteMoran – very pleased. Now get off daddy’s computer and go away.
“a lot of our American friends are at it again here” – I’ll tell you something, you Europeans (and others) have a lot of balls telling us how we should live. You try driving in our cities and suburbs, and just go to our grocery stores and shopping centers, without passing, being passed, or otherwise having a right-of-way issue with an eighteen wheeler. The majority, in excess of 90%, of the store deliveries are made by eighteen wheel over-the-road rigs. I know in my “big car” my chances are not great in an accident, but good God, my chances are nill in something the size of a Focus or Civic. Injury rates are statistically so much higher, and survivability so much lower in accidents involving small cars verses all larger vehicles (of any type), that I’m tired of subsidizing small car drivers insurance rates. Since insurance, by definition, is Shared” or “pooled” risk and indemnification for claims made on that risk, all of us driving larger vehicles, because our injury rates as a group are lower, are in effect, subsidizing the small car drivers. I’m all for pulling them (small cars) out of the general insurance pool and putting the lot of them in their own damn insurance class, and let them pay the real rates for both accident related death and injury, and repair or replacement of their vehicles. I guarantee they’ll see their rates jump up by half immediately.
ra_pro, in all your arrogance, you want to suggest that “freedom of consumption is not much of a freedom”? let me suggest that since we have at least three to four generations of large vehicles still serviceable on the road, and since all of our commercial deliveries (from UPS & FedEx to 18 wheelers and everything in between) are made by even larger vehicles, let me suggest that my family’s safety and comfort take infinite priority of your perceived offence at our consumption rates.
Injury rates are statistically so much higher, and survivability so much lower in accidents involving small cars verses all larger vehicles (of any type), that I’m tired of subsidizing small car drivers insurance rates.
That is a load of festering Doberman crap. Your tired of “subsidizing” small cars? How about subsidizing the cost of health insurance for the fat slob that is beginning to typify the average American? Obesity is overtaking smoking at the number one cause of preventable disease in this country. Small vehicles are not inherently unsafe, but being a tub of crap is almost a guarentee of massive medical bills, no matter how you slice it.
@golden2husky, yes, I’m tired of subsidizing obese people. Are we going to start regulating peoples BMI? Not likely. Keep your nose out of my car ownership business.
Len A: If you see my other post here, I stated “let people buy what they want”. Can’t be any more “out of you business” than that. However, you feel that small car buyers cost you money. While I disagree with that statement, I could easily counter that large vehicles, no, let me rephrase that: excess consumption costs everybody, whether it be due to military expenses to keep the fuel coming, pollution from burning all that fuel, or diabetes from living on Big Macs. Regulate BMI? No, but lets face it. All choices create a direct economic cost to the user and a (oh my god not the “S” word) social cost to all. Some groups simply choose to ignore the social aspect to their actions.
You just proved Len A correct. There will be trade off either way. You dirve your small car, and we’ll subsidize the much higher insurance costs from you getting maimed. And you can subsidize the waste from larger vehicles. Everyone wins!
@ChevyIIfan – I have three doctors in my family, two here in the States, one in Europe. All have done their rotations in the emergency room, and all three said the same thing – in collisions, people in small cars involved in accidents have more injuries, and often, more severe ones, especially lower leg injuries, resulting from intrusions of the firewall into the passenger compartment. Air bags and seat belts have done a great job of protection the upper torso and head. Now we’ve seen an increase in bad lower body injuries, all in smaller vehicles. How do you prevent this in future small vehicles? Strength the floor area of the small car, there-by increasing its mass and decreasing it’s fuel efficiency. Even with higher strength, light weight materials used in place of traditional heavier steel, everything gives way to physics. The mass of a larger vehicle, or a large, fixed obstacle, overwhelms the smaller vehicle. Small cars today are safer than anything built in thew 1950’s and 1960’s, but in a match-up against today’s larger vehicle, the laws of physics still applies and mass wins. As long as there are larger vehicles on the road, you and I can keep driving large cars, and anyone who disagrees can go drive what they like. I’ll take safety and comfort any day.
@ Len_A
So to be “safer” than you, I find myself having to drive a larger car than you which is clearly NUTS and has a direct cost to the community and me. Your choice influences another’s choice, which results in an expense in the community. Other people should (and do) have a say in that and ought to be asking questions about the sustainability of those choices.
That form of urban warfare that has proven so costly (energy wise) in the US for the last 15-20 years and needs to be questioned.
@ PeteMoran, as I posted above, my concern for the environment, and the geopolitical nature of energy distribution, and the rest of that ends when it either conflicts with my responsibility to my family, or my desire to drive with a bit of safety, or both. Feel free to not like my point-of-view, but I don’t give a damn if you don’t either, nothing personal intended. I didn’t create the circumstances, and I’ll be damned if I’ll compromise on my large size, all wheel drive sedan. My “need” for the size and the all wheel drive may be occasional, my desire for a safer ride is daily, and it’s my business, and my choice. If you feel that my choice conflicts with your choices, then so be it. My large size all wheel drive 2005 sedan was EPA rated as good as the 1996 midsize sedan it replaced. Real world gas mileage, as it turned out, was even better than either the EPA ratings of both, or the real world results I got on that 1996 midsize sedan. Why should I even consider comprising? Because someone perceives that it has some bad effect on them? Not hardly. My choice influences another’s choice, which results in an expense in the community, etc, etc? So what? My family, my business. And ” Other people should (and do) have a say in that” – Bull. No one else has the right to have a say in how I meet my responsibilities toward my family, ever. Period. That attitude is the ultimate in intrusive, and there is zero justification for it.
@ Len_A
Still you fail to see that if I make a choice for a larger vehicle than you, your family is less safe (or so the claim goes). My choice has an effect on the choice YOU have made.
Why? We share the roads. We share the expenses (fuel, roads, injuries etc). No amount of “I’ll do what I damn-well like” bluster will ever get around that. You won’t turn into a Keith Olbermann socialist if you admit it.
How is it that the Europeans (and Australians) cope without massive Pickups (for example) and with smaller cars and in the US, you can’t, costing yourselves a massive fortune in the meantime? It’s brain dead – if it takes a socialist anti-big car conspiracy to turn it round, then so be it. Other generations will benefit.
@ PeteMoran, that is one of the most ludicrous and misinformed statements I’ve seen yet. One, there is little available to drive that’s larger than what I have in a passenger car. Two, once you start throwing in the “socialist anti-big car conspiracy to turn it round” phrases, you pretty much lose the support of people you need to achieve such a goal. Your point is moot anyway – cars will downsize due to increased CAFE standards, but that doesn’t mean that I, and people like me, are going to jump into the smaller end of the vehicle spectrum. We’ll always stay at the largest end, and there’s nothing you can do about it. The only possibility, increased European style gas taxes, hits the lower income drivers so much, many who can only afford to buy older, larger, less fuel efficient cars, that you lose support of of much of the political left whose primary concern is their lower income constituency. Furthermore on that point, even increased CAFE standards do absolutely nothing for the big vehicles already on the road. They’re not going away any time soon. Even a quick check, via the Internet, of local car dealers used car inventories show that even with odometer readings just shy of six figures, they’re still available for sale. The way cars of all makes improved, many will be around for hundreds of thousands of miles. And given the current economic climate in the USA, the American taxpayer has no stomach for another “cash-for-clunkers” program to remove them from the road. I’m on extremely solid ground in saying there no chance of that ever happening again. And given the current political climate in this country, once you throw “if it takes a socialist anti-big car conspiracy to turn it round, then so be it” around, you’ve pretty much lost your position. You almost guarantee the opposite will happen.You finally reveal yourself for who you are. You might as well have thrown in “anti-American conspiracy ” into that phrase as well.
@ Len_A
Yes, you’re right about me. Also it’s clear to me you need help, so my comrades and I will help direct you. It’ll pay off; everyone will be safer, import less oil, have more money in their pockets. Trust me, I’m a………….. (fill in the blank for whatever conspiracy you want – swallow the blue or red pill Neo?).
So to be “safer” than you, I find myself having to drive a larger car than you which is clearly NUTS and has a direct cost to the community and me…
Pete: Well said. When I drove an 88 Mark VII LSC, it weighed 3800 pounds. Today a Toyota Avalon is approaching that weight. The “upward weight spiral” of trying to one up the other has to end at some point. What was once a safe weight is now “unsafe” or “less safe” according to the bigger is always safer crowd. The “laws of physics” are so often quoted as justification, and if all other factors were equal that would absolutely be true. However, as typical in real life, there are a plethora of variables. Unequal ride heights plays a huge role. Whatever vehicle that rides under the crash structure of another is at a huge disadvantage, even the under-riding vehicle is heavier. Death rates in SUVs (collectively as a class) in single vehicle crashes way outstrips the death rate in single vehicle car crashes (again collectively as a class). This despite the weight “advantage”. Heavier large cars are usually more expensive, effectively limiting younger drivers which are a much higher risk group. Back in the day, the rollover death rate in 2 door Dodge Shadows was four times that of the 4 door variety. Only difference: 2 doors were purchased by a substantially younger group. Point is that mass is only one part of the equation. If somebody wants to put most of their value of safety in mass alone, far be it for me to tell them otherwise. But, please: Keep your mouth shut when filling your tank. Watching all those drivers on the news filling their 4500 pound vehicles and bitching about the spike in prices made me ill. You made your choice, chest beating, flag waving and all. Now pay up and shut up.
Watching all those drivers on the news filling their 4500 pound vehicles and bitching about the spike in prices made me ill. You made your choice, chest beating, flag waving and all. Now pay up and shut up.
golden2husky: Screw that. Who the <expletive deleted> died and made you boss? Freedom to choose to buy what we can afford goes along with freed to gripe about gas prices if we so wish. If that makes you ill, then go buy a bottle of Pepto-Bismol.
“As I (Ingvar) asked, how much is enough? How big is big enough? What is a sensible car, for sensible needs?”
For a single young person with a long commute, it may be a Prius, the best (by far!) of all hybrids, and it shows in its sales. Or a Golf TDI, or a Fit (US models all)
For a large family, a Minivan, esp. the Odyssey.
But if you look at cars 40 years ago, or even 20 years ago, they were far lighter and far less powerful than today’s cars. In some segments like in Luxury imports, they are ludicrously overpowered for the very low speed limit US highways in particular. 400 and 500 is the new 200 and 300 HP!
Nutsaboutcars, I do agree with this aspect of the discussion. I read a weekly football column, and one thing he argues is cars should have less horsepower. Less horsepower would increase mileage. I do agree there really is no reason Camcords, malibus, fusions, etc. should EVER have V6s. They are 4-dr sedans, not sports cars! There can still be sports cars for racing purposes, but no family car (like any of those mentioned above) needs to have more than 150 hp. That alone would make for huge increases in the overall fleet mileage of US cars.
Nice to see somebody else on here reads Greg Easterbrook.
But yeah, my first car was a 1982 Chevy Celebrity, complete crap mobile, 151 cubic in Iron Duke was a POS but not because it only made 92 hp. That car got 29 mpg in equally mixed city/country driving with a 3 speed auto. With higher build quality and a more modern engine making about the same hp, I’d by a new one in a heartbeat for a daily driver. I’d still buy something cool for a toy or weekend use but 99% of the time I’d drive that “basic family sedan.”
Yep, MMQB has won me over with the argument for less horsepower. I don’t agree with most of his other political arguments, but I LOVE his less HP argument and, football related, his argument against punting. But yes, my parents had ’91 Geo Metro. That car had 3 cylinder that generated only 50 HP, but it got mileage very comparable to a Prius, without the nasty environmental impacts hybrids have (ridiculous amount of extremely limited rare-earth minerals used, disposal of battery packs that are as hazardous as nuclear waste, etc.) Many of thos late ’80s/early 90s cars got far better mileage than the same cars do today, due to HP increases. If we just decreased HP in we would save large quantities of petro.
Oops, should be TMQ, my mistake. I need to proof a little better. :)
The big problem with all too many government regulators is, that no more how noble the intention, it isn’t long before we are told that the original law/policy didn’t go far enough and we need MORE law/policy.
I’ve always been suspicious of people who wanted to implement revolutionary policies for the good of the “people”, citizens or mankind in general. Too often it winds up being good for the professional bureaucrats and crappy for all the rest of us.
Wow … I wonder is this the most response ever on TTAC?
I live in the USA, and I feel we do not have good small cars available here. Even with higher gas prices, I would not buy one of the small cars available here.
On the other hand, if we had options like the European Fords, or Mercedes A class, I would feel differently.
I always though that the root cause is that auto manufacturers do not see the big picture. They prefer the status quo and fear changes. (Which is why they went bankrupt, but I digress …) So in the USA, when they put small cars on the market, it is stripped and/or packaged unattractively, so that people would rather buy a bigger car, which is more profitable for them, and sustains the status quo.
If you go to Europe, Asia or even next door to Mexico, please have a look at what nice compact cars exist, and lament the fact that they are not available here.
Other countries have whole market segments, like cargo vans, which we never see. But when Dodge rebadged one and introduced it here, it sold well.
And the example that surprises me most, is the VW Golf Plus, a slighly larger version of the VW Golf, which should do very well in the USA. I have no idea why that was never sold here.
And then remember how the automakers lobbied uncle sam to clamp down on grey imports. For some weird reason, the auto makers like things the way they are.
Not even close to the most responses ever. I remember one that drew over a thousand comments.
@likenissan: I always though that the root cause is that auto manufacturers do not see the big picture. They prefer the status quo and fear changes. (Which is why they went bankrupt, but I digress …) So in the USA, when they put small cars on the market, it is stripped and/or packaged unattractively, so that people would rather buy a bigger car, which is more profitable for them, and sustains the status quo.”
Wrong. Detroit car makers built large because that’s what their customer base demanded. Until the new Fiesta and Cruze make it to market next year, Detroit’s small car offerings have been admittedly mediocre, because the car buyers that remained loyal to Detroit’s brands wouldn’t pay more for small cars. It’s been always a response to the market. Those new car buyers who were willing to pay more for small cars, and demand more content in their cars, had already gravitated toward the Asian brands.
Initial costs for car production is very high. The difference in producing a small car vs a big car isn’t that big, or at least not as big as the percieved difference in size. And as the profits per unit is bigger the bigger and more expensive the units are, that means there are a very small profit in making small cars, instead of large cars. That means, you have to produce small cars in very large numbers to get the same cost/benefit as for larger cars. The break even roof is quite high.
The sad truth is, the American auto makers have never really bothered with making good small cars in large numbers, with quality and appeal, as they only thought it would be too expensive, and only steal customers from their larger more profitable cars. That leads to a vicious circle, where their entire infra structure is moved towards bigger cars altogether.
That means, their entire customer base wandered off to manufacturers that actually could deliver what people wanted, and left the Detroit 3 to continue churning out profitable but bloated gas guzzling SUVs, that in the end really wasn’t good for anyone. The “We only make what people want” is a lie. They made hay while the sun was good, and may tomorrow never come.
@Ingvar – that is the biggest load of crap. It’s been market driven, in a market that has become increasingly segmented. Nothing more, nothing less.
Its up to each person to do their part as they see fit. I’m not for telling people what to do in most cases. I have faith in people (to some degree). People can decide for themselves what is fair and responsible. I drive a car that gets only 19mpg. Its the best car I can afford though (an E34). I try to balance this by buying local, healthier food, donating to charity and tree huggers, and by helping teach others to care about themselves and by extension everyone else. It works for me. I may swicht to a more efficient car for a while in the future, if I feel guilty I guess. Becoming healthier ourselves emotionally, mentally, physically, and spiritual are the only ways to save the planet and make things better imo. Any thing else is just dealing with the symptoms not the dis-ease, which is human unhappiness. Dealling with the symptoms will just make our egos stronger, not out hearts.
I hate big cars. But for some people who do not drive very much and put on few miles per year, the fuel used by a large car may not be much more or even less than a small car driven a lot of miles.
For example a car/truck driven 5000 miles per year getting 20 miles/gal uses 250 gallons of fuel. A smaller car driven 15000 miles per year getting 30 miles per gallon uses 500 gallons or twice as much fuel.
And don’t forget that as milage goes from 30 to 40 less fuel is saved than going from 20 to 30 miles/gallon.
It’s the amount of driving and whether it is really necessary that is important. One size does not fit all when it comes to cars.
Ingvar, methinks you’ve struck a nerve!
“Do We Really Need Big Cars?” Well, do we really need Ferraris? Do we really need Corvettes? Do we really need M series BMW’s, and Cadillac CTS-V’s? Should you have to get a permit from the government before you can buy an F-150?
Gimme a break. There was, as I recall, a country where the only cars available were the ones Big Brother decided you needed. Those cars were Trabants and Wartburgs.
And, actually, I can tell you why we “need” big cars. The reason is to reduce the need to have multiple vehicles when one will do. I can think of a lot of people who have some sort of Camcord for everyday use, and a Suburban which exists primarily to tow the boat, the camper, horse trailer etc. Back in the day, a Caprice, Roadmaster or Country Squire wagon could do both. The fuel efficiency of a 1990’s Roadmaster wagon is surprisingly good, and could be better with today’s technology if we optimized that instead of piling on the HP like we have been doing with every car of late.
By the way, would one of the people who got 14-15 MPG from a ’70’s Lincoln please explain how. I had a ’77 Town Car that would not return more than 9.5 MPG no matter how I tuned it and even if I drove like someone’s grandma.
Yep, my mother had a ’96 Caprice that our family of four took on a road trip from TX to PA several summers. We were gone for 2-3 weeks, and the car had a large enough trunk to hold four large suitcases plus extras for our trip. It also got 26-28 Hwy MPG. We would have had to take two cars using smaller vehicles, which means a camcord, malibu, etc. would needed to have gotten 56+ mpg. That figure doesn’t even account for maintenance costs, insurance costs, etc. As a result our family didn’t need multiple cars like so many others do with tiny cars have to have. Clearly, one “big”, slightly less efficent car is better for the environment that two smaller, slightly more efficient cars.
“B” body vehicles like the old Caprice or Roadmaster do pretty well on fuel efficiency given their size, and when you look at it in people-miles per gallon (carrying a large family for instance), it becomes a winning proposition.
I have a ’95 “D” body Fleetwood, which is the extended B chassis. The LT1 in that car is good for 21-23mpg on my commute, and I once touched 26mpg on an extended trip. I think that’s amazing for a 19 foot long, 4500 pound car.
I think we could extend MadHungarian’s argument to include America where we are only allowed to buy certain vehicles deemed safe enough or clean enough by our own gov’t.
What I wouldn’t do to be able to buy a Euro Ford, GM or some of the TDI VW products not available here…
I suggest we change the rules as Davey49 suggested. Let all of the world cars in and let the consumer decide what they want to drive. Maybe they’ll keep driving a F-150, maybe they’ll choose a Toyota HiLux 4WD turbo diesel truck getting 30 mpg.
Clearly, unless you have a huge family, a big car is a want, not a need. But Ingvar brings out an interesting difference between automotive demand in Europe and America, and the primary reason for that difference is gas taxes. Of course Europeans want smaller, more fuel-efficient cars – depending on the country in question, gas costs two to three times what it does in America. Makes perfect sense.
It also explains why the demand for bigger cars in America is so tied to the price of fuel. Four-buck-a-gallon gas prompted many to hit the panic button, and trade in big cars for compacts. In Europe, most people drive compacts anyway, so you didn’t see the dramatic market shift you did here.
The other obvious difference between Europe and America that drives automotive tastes is demographic and geographic – European cities are crowded, with narrow streets, while most Americans live in suburban areas with huge, multi-lane avenues. Even the American cities with the most crowded, narrow streets – Boston comes to mind – have nothing on, say, Rome.
Having said all that, yes, an American family can function just fine with a compact car. Our family car is a Focus sedan, and my family of four has managed two cross country trips in it. But damned if I wasn’t longing for a Suburban during those trips…
Hey I’ve driven large vehicles in Italian cities just fine. When traffic is really bad only a scooter is a happy way to get around. Fiat 500 vs Fiat Ducato – you’re still not moving. Parking a smaller vehicle makes a good difference. It comes down to taxes and cost of fuel.
Beetles, Rabbits/Golfs, Fiat cars and vans, Mercs and so forth. I’ve also driven American style Chevy and Dodge vans and S-10 Blazers in Italy. Driving isn’t the problem. Its everything else.
But you are trying to ignore context by citing a few outlying exceptions. It is a good technique to challenge assumptions, but here it is invalid.
Everything else defines context, and context reflects boundary conditions. If you can’t remove the boundary conditions, you can’t change the context, and then you see why people decide what they decide and live as they do.
The problem there, in the end of the analysis, is the driving. It is for no other reason than good fuel econ, better maneouverability, and parkability that Rome probably has the highest density of Smart cars in the whole world.
Don’t get me wrong – I lived in Naples for three years and could function with a large vehicle there but I wouldn’t do it on my own dollar.
I drove large vehicles for my job. I didn’t buy the fuel for those vehicles.
I would prefer a Fiesta/Polo/80s Rabbit/Mini sized vehicle. In 1994 I spent nearly $50 USD to fill up a Rabbit. No thanks.
I don’t see the point to driving something big and powerful to haul one 250 lb person to work in an office or even a family of four for around town – assuming that much of the traffic on the road ALSO drives smaller vehicles or the speeds are low.
If I lived in downtown Atlanta, I’m not sure I would drive a Mini with my fmaily in it – as much as I like the Mini or our VW Cabrio. I might be inclined to drive something larger like a CR-V or Jetta wagon for safety. I wouldn’t go overboard though and drive an Escalade.
No, we don’t need big cars, but life would be a whole lot more boring if we denied any choice –much less any say— in the matter. (And I say this as a small-car lover…)
Don’t make it an American thing, either; European car companies make some of the most INefficient cars on the planet, including Ferrari and Rolls-Royce. You could say, therefore, that a SUV is a much more efficient platform considering it can carry up to 4X more people than the Ferrari AND their gear. (And I say this as a SUV-hater…)
It would be a liberal who decides that no one else is smart enough to decide what’s best for them. It would be a liberal who thinks that, since only liberals know better, he will gladly make the decisions for everyone else. It would be a liberal who asks such a loaded question in the first place.
Sure, there is an element of selfishness present –since we brain-dead consumers obviously aren’t thinking Big Picture— but even liberals make selfish decisions (just ask Al Gore and Barbra Streisand about their LearJets and McMansions… but it’s perfectly OK because Al’s buying carbon offsets).
I love small, I just got rid of a Mini Cooper for A Mazdaspeed3 and would love a Miata. I also love the fact that Ferraris, Corvettes and BMWs exist. I am a European living in the US, but this isn’t a Europe v America thing. Europeans, en masse, given the choice of inexpensive to own large cars, would adopt land barges very quickly, it is human nature, people are selfish.
Equally, it isn’t a Lib vs Con issue either. As far as I’m concerned both sides have more than enough idiots to go around and neither side has a monopoly on telling the US public what is good for them.
The problems are at least two fold.
1. As many people have noted, we tend to buy for maximum use, because it’s inconvenient to rent a pickup truck for the handful of trips to Ikea/Home Depot/wherever, and it’s a pain to rent a minivan for the annual grandparental visit/roadtrip. There is no incentive for folks to pause and ask ‘Do I need a 7 seater minivan for my family of four?’ Where I live, a Minivan / large crossover is almost a standard purchase once sprog number 2 turns up. The natural progression of the one vehicle to meet all ‘needs’ mindset leads us to to abortions like the Cayenne Turbo and the Grand Cherokee SRT8, vehicles that few sane people would ever profess to need, unless you’re talking about the need to show off (not just the owners, the engineers too).
2. People have delicate egos. My old CEO (a fairly non car guy) drove a 5 series for his commute. In his mind, it just wouldn’t do to be seen pulling into the parking lot in a Corolla, he’s reached a certain station in life and people should know about it, dammit. Of course he is a bit of a jerk (more cynical people than I would ask how else could one become CEO?). A DUI has seen to it that he catches the train these days. His increased insurance premiums mean he is considering a VW next -that’s one way to get people into smaller cars eh ?
Gasoline is cheap, not as cheap as it used to be (but frankly, gasoline at the same price as Poland Spring was ridiculous). While it is that cheap, most folks will carry on buying exactly what they want/think they need and the auto manufacturers will be happy to keep on supplying us (and use advertising to convince us that our perceived needs are valid). A steadily increasing tax on gasoline would of course be politically difficult, but the revenues could (and I would argue really should) be ploughed directly into addressing the US’s embarrassingly crumbling infrastructure. It would provide folks with a gradually increasing incentive to evaluate their choices at the dealer too. Applying pressure to the consumer is the only way to get us to do the ‘big picture right thing’. If you don’t like who is determining what ‘the right thing’ is then we can elect someone else -it is still (mostly) a democracy. Problem is, that’ll likely result in us electing the person most aligned with our own selfish interests. Quite a problem…
An interesting and brave editorial.
I think you are absolutely correct – the size of vehicles is way out of proportion to their actual primary use. I think most people are well aware of that.
What might work, here in the US, is for every family to have about 6 or 8 cars. A couple Smart cars for the daily commute to the office. A Miyata for the weekends. A Suburban for the yearly vacation and pulling the boat up to the cabin and back. A full sized pickup for the thrice annual 4’x8′ building products hauling. And so on, and so forth.
I’ve found this multiple vehicle approach indispensable where bicycles are concerned. An old Raleigh 3 spd makes a good commuter, but not such a great bike for the woods and river trial riding. So I need a mountain bike. If I want to ride with the local bike club on their “K” rides, I need a road bike (the 3 speed won’t keep up). You can keep buying for special uses and can easily justify having several bicycles. Fortunately bicycles, especially used ones, are cheap.
Turning back to cars, people can’t afford to keep a half dozen different size/types of vehicles for different purposes. We tend to buy what will meet all our needs – e.g. essentially we buy for the maximum use, even if that use is rare.
So I think you are correct, that people will gravitate to slightly smaller cars if gas prices are higher, but I think they’d have to get very high for Americans to embrace Golf sized vehicles in large numbers. IOW, compared to Europeans, I think we’d generally prefer to have more car and less of something else.
As an aside, my son was car shopping recently, and drove a Honda Fit and a VW Jetta. The fit of course is more efficient, and even though my son is 6′ 1″ tall and about 200 lbs, he fit well in the Fit. But VW had their sign and drive event (lease for $259/mo, no money at signing) and there was simply no rational choice – it was cheaper to get into a VW Jetta, so he ended up with a car that is bigger than he really needs.
As an aside, I once had a 1981 Eldorado, and people asked me how I could afford to drive it – gas being all of $1.75/gal. But the car cost me very little. I bought it very used, for very little money. I drove it for 5 years, and had very few repairs. It got lousy mileage (about 13mpg) but I paid cash, so had no payments, had the minimum PLPD insurance, and so my operating costs were little more than gas and DexronII.
An additional thought. If gas suddenly jumped to say $9 per gallon, I don’t think it would have any short term affect on my family’s transportation habits. We all have short commutes to work, so gas, even expensive gas, isn’t as big a concern as for people who must drive longer distances.
No new car gets good enough MPGs that we’d see a payoff anytime soon. IOW, why trade a paid for vehicle which still runs well for a new one? The payments will way more than offset the fuel savings.
Of course, eventually, when the old buggies have to be replaced, then higher gas prices would be part of the decision making process.
Excellent article- it’s difficult for me to read some of the comments and not throw in my own two cents.
Some have chided ‘liberals’ for their futile attempts at social engineering and taxation in order to ahieve their goals. Others claim that the invisible hand of the free-market will solve all ills. This position is at best only naive, and at worst disastrously dangerous.
First, tax incentives have been used as the carrot to accomplish numerous social goals that our society deems important. For instance, marriage is a more financially advantageous arrangement than remaining single. The reason for this is that our government (and most likely society at large) believe that marriage encourages a level of social stability, and therefore should be encouraged. While the merits of marriage may be somewhat contentious, I find it hard to imagine that anyone would argue that the air we breath needs more smog. Therefore a creative incentive to entice people into buying more efficient cars coupled with disincentive to discourage people from purchasing less efficient cars would serve a compelling social purchase.
As things stand now the ‘free market’ (something which has never actually existed except in the pages of Adam Smith) will sell whatever is most profitable. I am a former car salesman, I sold Nissans. If someone came to our lot unsure of what size truck they needed I could usually do a damn fine job of getting them out the door in a Titan. I didn’t like the Titan any better than the Frontier, but the invisible hand of my wallet really wanted to make sure that I got every dime out of any rube unfortunate enough to make my acquaintance. Now, if my sales manager told me the next day that there was a bonus on selling our most economical pick-ups, well, Titans would just have to sit and collect dust.
I think people should be able to purchase whatever they want. I just also think we should provide savvy legislation that will encourage more people to purchase items that are better for the society at large. Many of the readers of this site are car enthusiasts. If you want to drive a Lincoln MKV then you should be able to… just damn the expenses.
Although I do have a plan B: remove all regulation from the highways, speed limits, lane markers, etc. Eventually, only the bravest most accomplished drivers will take to the roads, accomplishing a truly noble goal. A Greater public transit system.
One point that hasn’t been brought up is the upcoming 35mpg CAFE average for cars. Undoubtedly many more fuel efficient cars are on their way to market they just haven’t arrived yet. That is direct government mandate as to what types of cars will be available for future sale so the government has in fact already dictated what kinds of cars most people will be able to buy.
I’m now in charge. Because of our previous habit of indulging too many of our personal whims, henceforth, there will be two automotive choices. First, everyone shall be entitled to own a Ford Focus sedan. The color will be white. Manual transmission and an FM radio, but that is all. Because air conditioning is a luxury, most people do not need this feature, so it will not be available. You shall be allotted 12000 miles of permissible use per year. Any excess shall be heavily taxed. Abusers of the system shall have their car taken away.
Because I am kind and benificent, I recognize that certain people need either more space or because of health considerations, may need air conditioning or an automatic transmission. The choice for these people will be a Dodge Caravan. Hatchback for cargo, automatic transmission and air conditioning. There will be no other options, and they will be silver. In order to obtain the Caravan, you will need to make an appointment with me so that I can interview you and assign a caseworker to investigate the basis of your need. If you opt for the Caravan, you will only be permitted 9000 annual miles. This mileage restriction will act as an incentive against family sizes which I deem unreasonable or those who wish to live too far away from alternative transit sources.
There shall be one car permitted per household.
One final announcement. Tonight’s meal shall be one 4 oz baked chicken breast, 2 slices of whole wheat toast and a 3 oz serving of steamed brussel sprouts.
Thank you and have a wonderful day.
Watch it jpcavanaugh, you’re starting to sound like the current presidential admistration. Don’t you realize the government knows what you need far better than you do? You’re also likely to get censored for those comments. :)
Must we always veer every topic that’s faintly socio-economic into these gratuitous slams at the president and his fictitious leftism?
If you’re truly worked into a froth at the very idea of socialism, better you shut off Fox and start learning about real liberals like Sen. Bernie Sanders (and other people I truly admire), so you can direct your ire more appropriately.
No, we don’t need big cars. That includes huge minivans, and things like Honda Accords that are now much larger than they were in the 80s/early 90s. Trucks are still necessary, because people in the trades need to be able to haul their tools and materials around. But a truck isn’t needed to tow a small pop-up/tent trailer or to haul 2 kids to an event or even get groceries.
My parents never owned trucks and my brother and I didn’t notice any difference. We used to take a family of four camping with a pop-up trailer connected to an ’81 Civic wagon. I can’t comprehend how parents today think that they need a Shitblazer or an Exploder to haul their kids around. There’s no need for it.
Bottom line is: adjust fuel taxes appropriately, and people will buy what they can actually afford to operate when gas is $5 per gallon or more. Manufacturers will sell a lot less large trucks, and small cars and maybe even compact trucks will be much more in demand.
I fold the seats down in my Jetta and it becomes a truck that can haul 2 x 4s with the trunk closed. If I need a lot of 2 x 4s or plywood or drywall, I either rent a truck for a couple hours, or else have it delivered. Very few people need big vehicles as daily drivers. They however want them because they think they’re going to use the capabilities that they offer some day or buy them for the safety that they falsely provide to them. Or maybe they have a deficiency between their legs that a truck somehow addresses. But in my opinion, not many people actually need a large vehicle for their day to day activities.
I wouldn’t care about what other people drive if I didn’t have to share the road with them. As it is, they scare the hell out of me. Every time one of those lumbering heaps pull up on my ass, I know that if I have to brake they’re heading straight up it because it can’t brake or maneuver worth a damn. No special licensed required to drive one either. If you’re licensed to drive a Yaris safely, you’re licensed to drive a Suburban safely. And then there’s trying to see oncoming traffic at a stop sign when some SUV pulls up next to you. When they creep up at the same time that I do so that they can continue to block my view it just makes my blood boil. I like consumer choice and everything, but anything that gets more of these vehicles off of the road is going to help me out a lot.
No, we do not need big cars. Everyone should get a white Focus with an FM radio. Someone with a Doctor’s note should be able to get one with air or an automatic transmission. We do not need diets that go beyond raw vegetables and tofu, or a television with a screen larger than 13 inches. Now, how many TTAC readers have I actually described? Few, if any.
What we really need are people who do not consider themselves to be so important or enlightend that they are equipped to tell me what I do and do not need, when they have never met me and know nothing about my life and what my needs actually are. Different people have different needs for a car. Carmakers try to fulfill those needs. This is what makes cars interesting for those of us who follow this site.
And I really want (but do not need) that 79 Town Car. And, this being a free country (although don’t get me started on this topic), I am entitled to go out and buy myself one if I can afford it.
I would be very reluctant to limit the size of vehicles.
The reality is that such an action effectively takes power away from one and gives power to another, namely large EU/Obama style central governments.
Goverment is not a machine or a system, rather it’s just a place where alot of people work. Thus, with every rule or limit placed of a population, the effective reality is you are giving some humans yet more power of control over the lives of other humans.
There is tremendous advantage to smaller more effecient vehicles however. Perhaps sgnificantly stricter CAFE requirements is the answer. Yes, makers can make large cars and large trucks, and consumers have that choice, but there is much greater incentive for consumers to purchase smaller, cheaper, or cost effective vehicles (if CAFE fines are passed onto the consumer who buys a gas guzzler – and hopefully any fines collected by the Govt. are rolled back into American infrastructure and not the bottomless Federal black hole).
Besides environmental benefits, if American vehicles were significantly more fuel effecient, say twice as effecient as today, that’s billions of dollars out of the pockets of certain scoundrel nations, which in my book is a very good thing. Cheaper vehicles, in purchase price, cost of ownership, and fuel effeciency, would also only benefit the American consumer drowning in debt.
America MUST get out of much of its debt if it should want long term economic sustainability and political control over its own destiny. History is rife with empires and nations losing everything because they could not manage their fiscal affairs. Both government and consumers MUST make sacrifices in the interests of America, so perhaps its time to shelve both the “f*ck you, I can do what I want” and “Government will fix everyone and everything” attitudes.
It actually quite patriotic, and that’s not a cute argument, but the truth – saving money, living within one’s means, and producing/polluting less are all good for the country, and I for one, even though not American, wish the USofA all the best.
I would be very reluctant to limit the size of vehicles.
The reality is that such an action effectively takes power away from one and gives power to another, namely large EU/Obama style central governments.
Goverment is not a machine or a system, rather it’s just a place where alot of people work. Thus, with every rule or limit placed of a population, the effective reality is you are giving some humans yet more power of control over the lives of other humans.
There is tremendous advantage to smaller more effecient vehicles however. Perhaps sgnificantly stricter CAFE requirements is the answer. Yes, makers can make large cars and large trucks, and consumers have that choice, but there is much greater incentive for consumers to purchase smaller, cheaper, or cost effective vehicles (if CAFE fines are passed onto the consumer who buys a gas guzzler – and hopefully any fines collected by the Govt. are rolled back into American infrastructure and not the bottomless Federal black hole).
Besides environmental benefits, if American vehicles were significantly more fuel effecient, say twice as effecient as today, that’s billions of dollars out of the pockets of certain scoundrel nations, which in my book is a very good thing. Cheaper vehicles, in purchase price, cost of ownership, and fuel effeciency, would also only benefit the American consumer drowning in debt.
America MUST get out of much of its debt if it should want long term economic sustainability and political control over its own destiny. History is rife with empires and nations losing everything because they could not manage their fiscal affairs. Both government and consumers MUST make sacrifices in the interests of America, so perhaps its time to shelve both the “f*ck you, I can do what I want” and “Government will fix everyone and everything” attitudes.
It actually quite patriotic, and that’s not a cute argument, but the truth – saving money, living within one’s means, and producing/polluting less are all good for the country, and I for one, even though not American, wish the USofA all the best.
Well said. As an American, I couldn’t agree more. Perhaps I would stiffen the threshold for the triggering of the gas guzzler tax and mandating the collected funds for transportation projects, but you are right on target with all your points…
I think this debate is similar to the McMansion debate.
Would you rather live in a 2200 sq/ft house with a slate roof, heated wide plank floors, stainless steel pipes, top of the line appliances, etc. Or do you want to live in a 6000 sq/ft house with wall to wall carpet, vinyl floors, electric heat, and cheap appliances?
The same goes for cars – does the soccer mom need a Tahoe or would she be just as happy in a 320d X-drive wagon?
As far as government involvement in anything MPG or performance related, one only has to look at E10 mandates to see that perhaps the government should just stay out of the issue.
I can’t see why anyone would buy a large car when the minivans will carry more people and have very good ride. They are much more practical and get fairly good mileage considering their weight/volume. To me the big cars are just going to go the way of the dinosaurs.
It’s all about image. People want to haul a bunch of kids, but they want don’t want to look like a lame-o mommy/family man in the process. An SUV can haul a bunch of people and stuff, but it isn’t only for families. Maybe it’s being driven by a gangster hauling his posse and a bunch of guns in the back.
Oh, you said large car? Well they buy a large sedan for the same reason, image. But there are other better reasons. Number one is better performance and handling. If you don’t need the extra utility of the van, a sedan is going to be much nicer to drive.
Buy what you want. If you choose to go for the guzzler category, though, you kind of give up your right to complain about fuel prices or security or pollution as you have made yourself part of the problem not the solution…
Buy what you want and can afford.
I think it´s a good idea to steer people with taxes.
You want to drive an Sherman tank?
Fine, just be prepared to pay extra for using more natural resources,wearing down the roads and polluting our world.
It´s really disturbing to read the several answers, indirectly suggesting that the author of this article wants Communism or even Nazism.
Nah, I don’t think it’s disturbing at all. Suggesting the government control anything and everything and basically dictate evrything to people is kind of disturbing though.
But the government DO control anything and everything already. You can’t just do whatever the hell you want and go out in the street and shoot people. Not only is it unnecessary violence and death, it’s against the law. There’s tons of laws regulationg things in everyday life. So, what’s the difference?
The energy debate is a red herring designed to make people feel bad on the notion they are “using up the world’s resources”. The earth has ample supply of energy. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of years of fossil fuels left and even better billions (yes billions) of years of available nuclear fuel. The resources are abundant enough to not only provide a weathy lifestyle for the current population but even for a much larger population. The problem is the control freaks who wish to dominate others and do so by appealing to the emotions of ill informed people with twisted facts and outright lies. The poorest areas on earth are poor because of petty tyrants who try to control everything, thereby making everything very inefficient which in turn causes an unhappy unproductive populace. This is the fate the extreme eco movement is trying to saddle us with. They would like to see a world where everyone is poor, I would like to see a world where everyone is weathy.
@ timotheus980
“Billions of years” – thanks, you helped me ignore the rest of what you wrote.
Good work Ingvar – prompting people to ask questions about their actions is the only way to get them to separate themselves from the wasteful herd.
I’ve said it before; we ALL need to think harder about waste and sustainability.
Claiming “it’s my RIGHT” to be wasteful is an American obsession which is ending poorly for every person on the planet, including US citizens too. The US economy would be much healthier without the importation of so much oil – it’s only taken 30 years to work it out. The world needs a healthy US economy.
And non-Americans have halos over their heads when it comes to their own consumption, right? No wastefulness on their part at ALL, I’m sure.
We’d love to be able to import less oil, tap into our own petroleum resources, and be self-sufficient with them, Pete. We just can’t do that because every proposal for drilling on our own territories is bottled up and blocked by regulation and litigation that the political left uses as their weapons of choice!
The answer to “It’s my right!” is “”yeah, but do you really have to?”
@Ingvar – “The answer to “It’s my right!” is “”yeah, but do you really have to?”” My answer is “Yes, because that’s what I want.” And it’s not for you, or anyone else, to question it.
So, you are not part of society? You are an island of your own? “I can do whatever the hell I want, and fuck you all!”
And then what?
I think a point being missed in all of this is that while we certainly are free to make the choice in what vehicle we drive, we do so with a distinct blind eye towards the future. Our “we can damn well pay for what we want now” attitude will most assuredly cause hardship for our kin down the road…we just don’t care. Not an easy article to digest, but love the conversation so far!
Ingvar, it is -not- up to you nor anyone else to decide what others “need”, and neither is it any of your business what vehicles people buy. We hear this kind of talk from left-leaning politicans; postulating on how to punish achievement by “making the rich pay their fair share” and how much people should be able to earn financially. Sadly, too many of them with this mindset of regulate/mandate/litigate made their way into power in 2006 and 2008.
Kindly do not lecture to the rest of us how Europe does things and how we as Americans should follow their example. I think I speak for many when I say that I don’t give a damn how they do it overseas!
Think people “don’t need” large vehicles? Tell that to the rural landowner whose family is large and whose property is only accessible off-pavement and frequently in bad weather. Is he going to haul his equipment and 4-5 kids in a euro-spec crampact?
Read my post again. If they have the need, then it’s okey. I’m talking about excessive behavior here. And I’m not making lectures or telling people how to live their lifes. I’m just asking questions. And it’s good to ask yourself questions now and then. Like, it’s okey for you to have you “godforsaken right” to do whatever they hell you want. The question is, do you really have to? Just because you have the right do do something, doesn’t necessariy mean it’s a good thing to always use that right to the very limit.
Want vs. Need? That’s a big question, isn’t it? Specially in today’s world in which modern capitalism has created a tool, marketing, that is designed specifically to confuse the two ideas, selling what are, in fact, wants as if they were needs.
Now, I believe in the free market. I believe it results in more good than harm. However, some hetheredox policies from time to time, such as seen recently, in order to confront the present crisis, well, I also believe they can be worthy.
So, though I’m against it, my government does its best to nudge people into smaller cars. They do it by charging a 7.5% “industrial production tax” (among many other taxes afflicting car buyers and makers) to cars with an engine with a displacenment inferior to 1.0L. It goes up to 15% for cars w/ engines anywhere between 1.01L and 1.99L and is of 25% or 30% (sorry not sure and too lazy to look it up at this hour) for any car with an engine w/ a displacement of above 2.0L.
A good solution? Well, the law of unintended consequences goes into full swing here. For example our Mercosul (South American common market) partner Argentina, does not have a similar taxing scheme. So the market there rejects 1.0L cars as 1.2L, 1.3L and 1.4L engines are readily available and do provide more power without to much of a consumption penalty. As a result, and since cars made there can be sold here without taxation and vice-versa, and since the companies that operate here also operate there, there’s been a very strong trend for companies to invest in their Argentinian factories and not the Brazilian ones when such investments are to make bigger cars. So job losses, less technological transfers, less money in the economy.
Another nefarious consequence is that Brazilian car exports are falling. Of course, the crisis masquerades the reasons, but one of the underlying reasons is that most traditional Brazilian car importers (Latin American countries, Eastern Europe, the Middle East) reject 1.0L cars. Because the Brazilian car market buys most of its cars in the 1.0L category (anywhere between 55% to a peak of 70% some years ago when there were just two tax brackets, 10% for 1.0L cars and 30% for anything above that), makers invest a lot of time and money into this kind of engine. As a result bigger engines slowly but surely become less competitive (as they receive smaller investments at less frequent time intervals), and makers lose export sales.
This I believe is similar to the crisis that affected and still affects luxury Italian car makers (specially Alfa Romeo and Maserati, Ferrari doesn’t count because their cars have always demanded such a premium that taxes almost don’t matter) and even the French companies. As the taxation there heavily burdened cars above 2.0L, slowly but surely, their bigger engined cars became less competitive. Specially as in the 60s and 70s protective measures were in full swing and all European makers were heavily dependant on their home market (sure I want an Alfa V6 or a Renault V8, but would I be willing to pay more than 45% over the “similar” 2.0L model??). By the time the rolling and globalizing 80s came along, the Germans (w/ their different form of taxation) were ready to come in and practically kill their European competition in larger cars. Heck, even Audi had time to grow and develop from a maker of prettier and small Volks to a serious contender. Sure, there’s German engineering prowess and whatnot, but I think the main reason the Germans nearly wiped out the bigger Renaults, Peugeots, Citroens, Fiats, and even Fords and GMs was government policy which tried to guide (misguide?) what consumers should buy.
Wow, this is turning into a long post, but bear with me.
On to the question of big vs. small cars. I think it’s a question of being used to it. I see many people, as they get older, gravitate to smaller cars. Their children have left and I think they get over the whole I’ve-got-to-have-a-car-that-will-impress-my-clients/women/friends/family/neighbors thing (in other words, they realize better their needs and give greater weight to them than to a want they no longer have. Or in other words still, they don’t confuse the two ideas anymore as they’re able to see through the marketing better). And they do it, though they could well afford not to, because at an earlier stage in their life they had driven the small compacts (or to you Americans, sub-compacts) so prevalent in Brazil. They get in the car and are pleased that the small cars now offer all sorts of creature comforts, are economical, are easy to park, can handle the ocassional highway romp, and will leave a smaller hole in their pocket.
Case in point, my mother. She now lives out in the suburbs and a car is a must. She won’t touch my father’s Pathfinder (she calls it a bus, and w/ its diesel engine it sure sounds like one), and though my brother was travelling and his car was available, I had to lend her mine and take my brother’s. Why? Well he has a Fusion and I have a Fiat Palio. In Brazil, the Fusion is considered of an exhuberant size. It might well be a Cadillac Eldorado. She said, “I simply won’t drive that bathtub (Brazilian derogatory term form large barge cars)”. So I lent her my car and took my brothers. For a week.
Of course it’s an anecdote, but it “proves” my point. Many people lust after bigger cars, but after having a taste of them, simply go back to smaller cars. Like me. After a week I was more than ready to give my brother his car back and get back mine. Why? Sure, I appreciated the ride, the luxuries, the power, but after a week I pined for the nimbleness, ease of parking, the general “feel” my car provides. Sure its noisy, underpowered, but its not cramped, uncomfortable or lacking in electronic goodies. And in Brazil it is much less of a hassle.
So my point is, modern compacts will win out in the end (specially when you’re used to them) because nowadays the governments is nudging us there, the cars are much better than in the past, and we are entering an era where people will (hopefully) see through the hype and make their purchasing decisions based on need and not want.
@ FromBrazil
I took the time to read your post and I’m glad I did. It’s fascinating to read insights from other countries. Thanks.
@PeteMoran
No, please, I thank you for the interest and kind words.
Well, there are good ways and there are bad ways. As seen in the Italian or French examples, those taxes were so punitive they became counter-productive. But bear in mind, they also lead to Fiat developing the common-rail diesel technology, the most efficient diesel-engine yet.
Four or five decades ago, John Bond, the founder and publisher of Road&Track magazine, as I recall and paraphrase, wrote that 0-60 mph in 10.0 sec was just fine for most people. I suspect that time has proven him right. It’s fun to drive a fast car, but not necessary for most activities, nor is it necessary to have a humongous vehicle when something smaller is just fine, too. Bigger and faster may not be better. By the way, I run a small corporation and commute in a Subaru, a vehicle less costly than some of my employees’ vehicles.
There is nothing quite like a late ’70’s Lincoln. I have had three ’79 Lincoln in my life (a Town Coupe, a Mark V and Currently, I have a Continental Town Car. I love them. I drive 70 miles a day, so my daily driver is a ’09 Corolla, but the ’79 Town Car is awesome. And it gets a solid 10 MPG by the way.
I think I have some insight into this, as I own both a large and a small car. My daily driver is a 1998 Lexus LS400 and I also have a Miata that I sometimes commute in, plus drive on shorter fun drives. I am 44 years old and a little taller than usual but not excessively so (6’2″) and have a 60 mile round trip commute. In a typical day I’ll be in the car 1-2 hours a day including the commute and other errands.
I can drive the Miata once, maybe twice a week, usually when the weather permits top-down driving. In the winter it’s parked most of the time. I just cannot be comfortable spending much more time than that in a small car. It’s got enough headroom (even with the top up) and the legroom isn’t too bad but the seating position and getting in and out weighs on my less-flexible-than-it-used-to-be body. I bought the Miata new 13 years ago and as the years have gone by the percentage of my driving that I take in it has declined.
I like small cars. Miata obviously, and I also admire Mini Coopers (well the exterior anyway, let’s not talk about that cartoonish interior) and also Priuses, as well as VW’s smaller cars. I almost bought a 318ti, oh so many years ago. So have nothing against well-executed small cars but can only spend so much time in one in an average week without getting stiff and sore.
One complaint about heavier cars that has been mentioned is the extra insulation. Well road noise increases fatigue and it’s quite tiring to spend 1-2 hours a day in a car that’s loud (unless it’s a sunny day the top is down).
The gas price incentive may not work as well as the original author suggests it would. If you’re starting from scratch and choosing between two new cars, OK maybe. But I keep a spreadsheet of operating costs and if you look at the numbers honestly rather than to try to justify a new purchase, when I’m comparing “keeping my paid-off V-8 sedan” to “buying a Prius”, even with $6 gas keeping the v-8 sedan wins and it’s not even close. Even though I drive about 23K miles a year. Point being it would take years for those incentives to transform the fleet, especially with a down economy limiting new car purchases.
Finally, I will also add that it’s a little tiresome reading posts that attribute every opinion the writer doesn’t like to “liberalism” or “liberals who think they know better” or other stupid nonsense. As if conservatives and their politicians never tried to dictate behavior or limit people’s freedom to live as they see fit or made it clear they know better than others how they should make their choices. Please. Let’s try to keep inane FOX News/MSNBC bickering talking-head politics out of the discussion.
Agree w/ you regarding the noise. But there are solutions. For example, my car, the Fiat Palio, has gotten noisier as it ages. However, there’s a service down here called “tira-grilo” (something like “removes the grasshoppers”, which means takes away all the little noises that come from normal wear and tear). I’m taking my car to a specialist this week and, hopefully, my car will be back to its brand new noise levels.
And as to getting into or out of cars, I guess that’s why I’ve read in these pages that older people in America bought the Scion xB en masse. A small car w/ very easy ingress/egress. If it interests you, down here and in Europe there are cars which while short in length are taller than average and are beloved of older people (Renault Scénic, considered a minivan, though Americans will call it a “microvan”, Fiat Idea a “supermicrovan”, or even a VW Fox, that is so small it falls into the sub-compact class, maybe a “hypersupermicrovan”, but with bigger doors and a higher sitting position). Even in America you get the Fit, which due to its shape is easy to get in and out of.
Of course, all of these cars are tall so they’ll not hold a candle to your Miata, but I’m just pointing out that there are older-people-friendly compact cars.
Mr. Hallstrom,
You have written an interesting and thought provoking article. As a number of people already have, I would like to insert my two cents (or more) on the matter.
Since nearly all the auto manufacturers, both foreign and domestic, have gotten in on the act of building 4-wheeled behemoths, I will approach my comments from the angle of the American consumer rather than from that of the vehicle producers. Let me also offer up the fact that, as an automotive enthusiast, my personal 4-wheeled “fleet” (shared with my wife) ranges from a full-sized pickup truck to a MINI Cooper S with a large sedan and a couple of sports cars in between. Toss in a handful of motorcycles, and you have an inventory of my garage and driveway. I really enjoy driving small vehicles, but they do not do everything I ask from a vehicle.
Each of my vehicles serves a purpose. The sports cars (Corvettes) are toys. They are used for fair weather entertainment and autocross racing events. The pickup (a Chevy crew cab diesel) was purchased primarily to trailer Corvettes to races while hauling tools, extra tires, and miscellaneous gear. It is also used whenever we have a need to haul a larger amount of stuff or people (it will seat up to six). The MINI was intended as an everyday car and has hauled me and my wife on everything from daily commutes, to cross country vacations. The sedan, a Pontiac G8, was purchased as an entertaining family car that is capable of moving several people without punishing the driver.
The MINI served as a fun and practical vehicle for several years when our house was populated by just me and my wife. Kids changed that. When my son showed up two years ago, I excitedly fit his rearward facing infant seat into the back of the Cooper. Despite its overall smallish size, the back seat of the MINI has a fair amount of room in it. I was somewhat dismayed to find that the child seat took up so much room that the front passenger seat had to be moved up to the point of not being able to actually seat a passenger. My wife is 5’ 10” tall and I am 6’ 0”. It is possible, but not comfortable, for her to sit behind my seat in the MINI. We could cram the three of us in the car if we really wanted to, but it wasn’t going to be a long term solution.
The G8 was selected so that I could sit in the back seat comfortably when I needed to while still accommodating a couple of child seats (kid #2 will be here in June) and enough luggage to hold us for week long trips to visit the grandparents and great grandparents. Those visits put us in the car for either 6 or 12 hours (one way), depending on the location. The luggage includes the normal clothes, plus strollers, pack & plays, diapers, toys, and other child-related sundries.
Don’t worry. I am getting to a point here. Your article makes several references to “real day to day practical needs”. Who determines the real practical needs for a particular consumer? The consumer or someone else? A couple without children can get by quite comfortably with a MINI Cooper, but that’s not practical for a growing family. Does that family need an Expedition? Probably not. But what if that family has a travel trailer that they like to use on weekends? One option may be to buy the Expedition for use only when pulling that trailer and hauling the family up north for the weekend, but buying a $50,000 vehicle and then parking it most of the time is a luxury many families cannot afford. As a result, the big SUV will probably see daily use while not pulling a trailer. Should we tell that family that they don’t really need to have a travel trailer and that they should find a different form of family entertainment? I think that’s a frightening idea. I freely admit that I do not need a 400+ horsepower car to carry my family around, but I liked the G8 and wanted a car with a stick shift. I paid my gas guzzler penalty at the time of purchase, and I continue to pay my penalty each time I fill up. But for me, it’s worth it. I combined my needs with my wants and came to a decision I was happy with. And I was able to make that decision for myself.
I grew up in a family of six. The first of our cars that I remember was a 1975 Dodge Royal Monaco Brougham. It was a big boat with a 400 cubic inch engine. Did we need that car? I would argue “yes”. It had two bench seats, and we put three people across both of them. The huge trunk would be filled on vacations with all the luggage and food we needed, plus an outboard motor, gas can, and fishing equipment. Could we have gotten by with a smaller engine? Probably. Could we have made do with less luggage capacity? Maybe, although we probably would have had to use a car top carrier or trailer on longer trips. The beauty, though, is we had the choice.
I’m not sure about the rest of the world, but in the United States, I expect the consumers to be able to determine their own needs. If their budgets allow and they want to drive larger vehicles, then they should be able to. Higher fuel prices or less room for vehicle parking or maneuvering may cause people to reevaluate what they really need or may cause them to make sacrifices and buy smaller cars. I know your initial suggestion is to use taxation to guide people into smaller cars. I’m not entirely against that. I would prefer not to have to pay the taxes (either on the vehicle or the fuel), but it’s probably a workable solution for a reasonable goal. What makes me particularly nervous are your comments asking if the automakers should be allowed to “make what people want”. Yes, they should. Make people decide with their pocketbooks, but let them decide.
Thank you.
“Who determines the real practical needs for a particular consumer?”
Well, that’s why I’m asking. You tell me?
You seem to be lucky and fortunate enough to have a fleet of cars, serving every possible purpose and need, you even have cars just when you have the need of driving for fun. And that’s fine. However, most people are not that lucky, and may have to do with one car that has to fill every need and purpose. So, what kind of car should be good for them? A car that fills all their needs, but not all the time? Or most of their needs most of the time?
Ingvar,
The consumer of the vehicle is the one who determines his or her real practical needs. They may chose to buy a vehicle that serves every possible need and then drive it all the time, or they may decide to buy something that fills most of their needs most of the time. It’s up to them to weigh out their personal situation including finances, family size, activities, etc.
It is too simplistic to assume that someone driving a large vehicle is being wasteful. If I refer back again to my family situation growing up (Mom, Dad, and four children), there was a real need for a vehicle that seated six. In the 1970’s, it was acceptable to seat a child in the middle front seat with a lap belt. It was also acceptable to seat three children in the back seat with lap belts and no child restraints. A family of six today would not have a child under 12 in the front seat and would have all younger children in either child seats or booster seats. It takes a large vehicle to get three child seats across. It also takes a large vehicle to have three rows of seats. If you happen to see the mother of that family driving their minivan, SUV, or crossover to the store without the rest of the family with her, will you accuse her of being wasteful because Dad offered to watch the kids for the afternoon? You don’t know unless you personally know the situation.
No, of course not. And those are good points, for which I don’t have an answer.
But it seems to me that there could be alternatives to buying a SUV i terms of packaging. I don’t know if it’s sold stateside, but in Europe there is the Honda FR-V, seating six in a 3+3 configuration. It has a small foot print, it’s actually only Golf sized.
The point is, size isn’t everything. Extra large isn’t always the best way to go. If more r&d was invested in smaller cars, better small cars would be developed. Alternatives would be available.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_FR-V
Ingvar,
I am not familiar with the Honda FR-V, but I have read that GM is coming out with a small seven seat vehicle that may be comparable in overall size and utility, the Chevrolet Orlando. It’s not available yet, but appears to address the “small car for several people” need.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Orlando
http://jalopnik.com/5057661/chevy-orlando-concept-officially-revealed
Alternatives are always good. Different choices will appeal to different people. The United States has already seen that people’s buying and driving habits changed when gasoline (and diesel) prices rose last year. One person may choose to buy a more fuel efficient vehicle. Another may choose to drive fewer miles in a less fuel efficient vehicle. Someone with a large vehicle may offer to drive for a carpool to transport several people to work. I know I chose to ride a motorcycle more often than I normally would. I expect fuel prices will increase again in the future. I also expect that the buying public will react in a way that fits their financial means. That combined with the new CAFE regulations will likely drive a smaller overall vehicle fleet.
I enjoy driving small cars for their responsiveness and handling. The better fuel economy and maneuverability is a bonus. When I bought my MINI in 2003, premium gasoline cost me $1.92 per gallon (I’m an engineer, I keep track of stuff like that). Fuel prices were not a driving factor in my purchase decision. The driving factor was the car itself. I liked the styling and it was a blast to drive. Both statements are still true today, six years and 106,000 miles later. People will buy vehicles that fulfill their needs, catch their eye, and fit their budget.
If you keep up with the automotive news reports, I think you’ll see that more R&D is being invested in small cars and fuel efficiency. Ford is introducing the Fiesta to the US market. Chevy’s new Cruze is equipped with a 1.4L turbocharged 4-cylinder. The Chevy Equinox crossover has a 4-cylinder engine that gets 32 MPG on the highway and is being praised by the automotive press. Smaller boosted engines with direct injection are becoming common. HCCI is still having the bugs worked out, but is being planned for future production. Automakers are experimenting with lighter materials to allow vehicle size to stay up while mass goes down. It will be interesting to see what the average vehicle looks like 10 years from now. I don’t think it will look the same as today.
Thank you for the article.
I would expect this kind of thing on the huffington post or kos, but not on a site supposedly devoted to car enthusiasts.
Do you really need the computer you wrote this editorial on? The byproducts of its production are being dumped in the ocean in China and getting carried all the way over here which affects ME! Why don’t you go buy a plot of land and live on subsistence farming? Thats all you really need.
Do you really need a big meal?
Do you really need nice clothes?
Do you really need a house bigger than a few rooms?
Do you really need a powerful PC?
Do you really need your wedding rings?
Do you really need…I think you get my point.
You’re approaching something that has nothing at all to do with practicality from a practical standpoint. But people don’t buy what is most practical for them. They buy what they want.
@ kol
False equivalence. Does a wedding ring choice create 10-15 years of oil energy consumption?
Ingvar, stick this editorial in an envelope and send it to Scandinavia. I don’t know if you were born in America or not, but you don’t really seem to be grasping the way we traditionally do things around here. So here’s how it works, I “need” whatever I want, and the only thing I ever want is more.
@joe_thousandaire – +1 – well said.
Really? Yeah, well, that doesn’t sound childish and immature at all. No, not one bit.
Good point, The folks in the states tend to buy more car then they need.
When gas was cheap, the avg commuter vehicle was a large SUV or pick-up truck was the rage to get to the ole office and back on the wilds of Rt 128 in Boston. To me it was amusing to see these vehicles used for that purpose. (Even more considering I have family out west, where these trucks, suv, are actually seen off-road, or covered in mud, and used for working.
And in bad weather, they (including some Subies’) would be the ones that where flipped, or slid off the road in bad weather. Funny when gas hit 4 bucks a gallon, I don’t see as many of them anymore
Dynamic, My brother has a rebuilt dump find bike for his work commute of 7 miles. He has a feather weight road bike and a semi mountain bike for fun. I keep an old SUV for very occasional use. If you have space for a few devoted rides than go for it. Golfers use more than one club.
We do that with bikes. My wife and I have 14 bikes between us. I’m reluctant to have that many cars.
Cars in the U.S. have always been larger than elsewhere, and that’s probably not going to change anytime soon. But large cars would be a better and more fuel-efficient option than the SUVs for which many buyers in this country opt.
As nutsaboutcars and Mark MacInnis pointed out, it’s CAFE that has made the fuel efficiency of vehicles in this country worse, not better. If we’d have allowed free markets to determine what vehicles look like, we wouldn’t have the manipulation of classifying vehicles as “cars” or “trucks.”
Which is why we ended up with mid-90s Roadmaster and Caprice wagons being dangerously close to being taxed as “gas guzzlers” while Tahoes and Suburbans of the same era got worse gas mileage, but didn’t face the same dilemma.
That’s my point. If it doesn’t regulate all cars and trucks, then it’s irrelevant. It has only brought absurd consequences yet, like making it more favourable for the Detroit 3 to invest r&d in trucks instead of cars, churning out SUVs and trucks to the people, instead of cars.
James2-Excellent post. I don’t drink the Al Gore science fiction Kool Aid either. Though I do appreciate his inventing the internet!
It’s simply sickening how much freedom some people are allowed. When left to do as they please, they watch lowbrow TV shows, buy big cars, eat too much food (including filet mignon and lobster, for crissakes) and worst of all, live in houses that are bigger–both horizontally and vertically–than they need. Don’t tell me that six-foot ceiling heights wouldn’t be plenty high enough to accommodate the majority of people. We could save 25% on studs and drywall alone.
What’s sickening is the sanctimonious and self-righteous that take it upon themselves to decide what’s good enough for other people. If you’re being factious, good on you. If you’re being serious, seriously go….
Oh, and I can’t wait to replace me eight year old 57″ widescreen rear projection TV with a new 60″ plasma, energy usage be damned.
@ petemoran
“”Billions of years” – thanks, you helped me ignore the rest of what you wrote.”
Don’t take my word for it, you can ask Dr Cohen from Pittsburg University:
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/cohen.html
I for one will be eagerly awaiting my nuclear powered Hummer
So much of this becomes a non-argument even at $4/gal.
For those of us who live in states that don’t make multiple vehicle ownership prohibitively expensive, I tend to think Dynamic88’s solution is practical for a lot of people.
I try to always have a van floating around. Money? Nice late 80’s Ford for around $700. Costs way less than driving around in an Excursion all the time.
Also you can get a lotta used iron for less than the cost of one new car.
Although no one has mentioned it the government has already in effect dictated what types of vehicles will be sold in the future through the 35mpg CAFE mandate. As more smaller fuel efficient vehicles are brought to market they will gain a larger percentage of market share. More refined smaller fuel efficient vehicles will also help this trend. Manufacturers have finally figured out that smaller vehicles must have the same features and level of trim that larger vehicles do.
Pretty much true, although depending on where gas prices are at the time those cars come out, if prices are where they are now, people will gravitate toward the larger vehicles (and rightfully so, IMHO).
While I’m a big fan of personal choice, I think our “we can have anything we want, regardless of the future” attitude is getting a bit old. It is not a God-given right that we all drive around in gas-guzzling vehicles. In our zeal to exercise our desire to drive whatever we want (not need), we do so with a decided blind eye facing the future of our offspring (and their offspring). Is complete personal choice without regard to America’s future really smart? I think we’ve seen recently how dangerous unbridled consumption can be for our country, and I for one, would like to see this nation exist and thrive for centuries to come…not just for the short time I’m here on Earth. Do I long for a really nice, large car? Sure…most of us probably do. Do I need anything larger than the 4 cyl Fusion I own? Not even close. We can express personal freedom of choice without being ignorant to what kind of future our kids will face…
Great article and discussion, by the way! The snarkiness has been kept to a minimum (though it got dicey there for a while). Nice to see we can carry on a reasonable and civil discussion…:)
Just a question:
Should the western european governments decide to reduce gas taxes to the US levels, then remove the different incentives for europeans to drive smaller cars, wouldn’t this result in the population switching to SUVs with V6 or V8?… Now, what would this increase in demand for oil imply for the cost of gas in the USA?
In short: Gas is $2.50 a gallon in the US because it is $7 a gallon in Europe!
Another way to look at things: Should the US decide to adopt the european approach, then maybe the corresponding decrease in demand for oil would drive the price drastically lower….
Who has the smartest, most responsable policy?
Yes, and that’s the core point of my argument. The Europeans have had those limitations for some fifty years or so, developing some of the most efficient, best packaged, most practical, and most fun cars seen yet doing so. And they seem fine, running around in their Golfs, Fiats, Fiestas, whatever. And the people with money seem just fine driving their Volvo wagons and S-Classes, however more expensive that may be. Incidentally, Cadillac sells in the lower thousands a year, in a 700 million population. The point is, if the Europeans can make it, or the Japanese, why can’t all people?
It isn’t a “God-given right”? Mr. T. Jefferson, et al, would disagree: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Jefferson didn’t have a big car, but he liked big houses. ;-)
God knows it’s not just the liberals that want to tell us how to live here in the U.S. I can’t buy a six-pack of beer here in GA on a Sunday because the conservatives know what’s best for me. Lots of generalizations here about liberals and conservatives that really don’t say much.
The heart of the matter is always back to finances. We buy what we can afford and what we need. When we can afford more, we buy what we want. Either way, I want a free market and a government that doesn’t tax and intrude on my life. I damn sure don’t want a government that tells me what size vehicle I can buy. Do we really think that the government, in all its inefficiency and political wrangling, will actually properly apply a gas tax that goes directly to the infrastructure and such that it needs to? Of course not.
Are we going to allow the government to dictate what defines a “big” car? Is it weight, length, width, HP, exterior, interior? Or the pie-plate size of the hood emblem (hide your keys Mercedes owners)? The government would come out with some Bible-sized, illegible book of arcane regulations covering the topic ensuring that no one knows what’s going on. Just look at our ridiculous tax credits, subsidies and financial markets.
Frankly, as an American, it would be easy to be offended by such a line of questioning about something so inherently tied to our culture. I’m not, but I grant the author a bit of leeway, given that he’s European and that culture is quite at odds with both our disdain for the heavy hand of government and our individual nature as a people. Generalizations, yes, but I have lived in England for a few years and traveled to various countries there, so I have a bit more balanced viewpoint. But realize that you will probably never understand our love of guns (well, some of us) and distrust of anyone or any government “regulating” us in any fashion.
I drive a ’95 Golf as my regular car. I also use a 2009 DTS as a work car.
The Golf is excellent and comfy on long drives. So is the DTS.
The Golf gets about 30 mpg overall, the DTS, about 20 or so.
The Golf can hold four people in relative comfort. So can the DTS.
Both the Golf and the DTS can fit a third in the back, who will be unhappy.
Both the Golf and the DTS have excellent driving characteristics.
The DTS is nearly impossable to park easily, the Golf is simple to park. I never take the Caddy into the city unless the company is paying for a parking lot. The Golf is easy to park on the street.
Both cars can carry my bike. It looks better on the back of the Golf, tho.
On long weekends when I will be driving, I use the Golf. It’s easier to drive, way more fuel efficient, and more fun, actually. I take it even tho I can use the company car it I choose.
I prefer the Golf usually, and that didn’t suprise me. What the golf doesnt have is the presence that a big caddy has or say a big benz , the other work car we have here. If you wanna impress claints, you have to do the dance. People are superficial, i suppose.
I’ve driven all sorts of cars. I find SUV’s to be tippy and scary (Honda). I rented a Tahoe recently to take five of us on a day trip to the shore, I was impressed with it. It got about 15 mpg, but after splitting it, who cares. I returned it the same day. Got back into the VW.
I need a new car now, I am looking at another VW (of course), also the new Mustang 6, with 300 hp and 30 mpg. That moght be just the ticket.
Should govermments interfere? Sure. taxes are levied on gas at different rates in different states – Jersey is about 25 cents per gallon cheaper than PA. I am in favor of increasing taxes on fuel. If jersey was on parity with PA, perhaps their property taxes would be less. And they would stop complaining all the time.
Interesting article.
Of course we have no need for such large cars. Most people in Chicago who drive F-150’s to work in a skyscraper cubicle or empty 7 passenger suv’s every morning are the bane of my existence. If they actually needed to access the bed in their F-150, I would imagine they couldn’t even reach inside without a step ladder.
This issue carries over to so many areas of American life, be it house and lot size, consumption of food, shopping, etc. Bigger is always seen as better here, and people get very upset when you threaten that way of life. I love when people say, “whats next, will they regulate when I go to the bathroom?”
As much as it would kill my savings, higher gas prices would do our society some good. Perhaps a new peak or a consistent level of high prices would cause these monsters to drop off the roads. It was pretty funny seeing people pay 4K for a 93 Geo Prism last year. 3 Cylinder goodness!!!!!
I own a MKV GTI. I have a stage one flash, get 35 MPG on the highway, and 30MPG on a 62 mile round trip commute. I can fit six foot lumber, hockey bags, camping gear, and just about anything you throw at me in that little guy. I am also 6’2″ 200 lbs. I would have purchased a TDI if I could have afforded one, but a 27K Jetta is a bit much. I feel it was a good compromise between efficiency, utility, and fun factor. Driving for 2 hours a day in a Yaris is hard on your left foot………………………….
Count me in as pro-big car. I mean, how is that dinky little Aveo gonna protect you when your wife finds out about the girlfriend and takes a nine iron to your head?
On this subject, I know I have an attitude, but frankly I’m more than a bit put out that the question is even being asked. Add to that the comments coming from both some of the Europeans and some of the small car fans here, and this whole subject matter really gets my blood boiling.
@Ingvar – ” ‘Who determines the real practical needs for a particular consumer?’
Well, that’s why I’m asking. You tell me?” That fact that you’re even asking, that you value the topic enough to initiate a conversation on it, to me is intrusive. As long as I can legally buy it, and I can legally afford it, what I drive and my reasoning behind my purchases, is frankly, NOYB – None Of Your Business, and that pretty much applies to everyone else, here in the USA and else where in the world. I don’t care how anyone else perceives how my big American sedan affects them. If they perceive that my consumption affects them in some negative, tough. As long as I can afford it, I’ll drive what I please, and what I please to drive is a large size American sedan. If my budget allowed it, as much as it’s been panned here on TTAC, I’d replace my Mercury with a Lincoln MKT Ecoboost, and it’s just myself, my wife, and our little dog. Why? Because it appeals to me, period.
Do you, or anyone else have even the right to question it? No. Hell no. NOYB, period. Do those who dislike big cars have the right to try use government tax policy to change consumer behavior, mine included, to suit their beliefs? Again, hell no. Again, it’s NOYB. Period.
EPA/CAFE increases will already downsize car fleets, and thanks to intense lobbying by some foreign car makers, the upcoming mileage increases are already being unevenly applied. Companies like the Detroit automakers, GM, Ford, & Chrysler, along with Toyota, Nissan, & Honda, have to meet a higher MPG standard than luxury brands Mercedes & BMW, because of the aforementioned six automakers get penalized for being full line manufacturers and therefore have higher sales than some luxury brands. Great.
That said, we’re already going to see further downsizing of our cars, so exactly what purpose is served by even asking whether we really need big cars? What purpose? I don’t hate small cars, but I don’t like driving them. I don’t find them comfortable, the increase in mileage isn’t enough to offset the lack of cargo room, and frankly, all the technology in the world isn’t going to substitute for size and mass in an accident. All the future downsizing isn’t going to change two facts: One, existing large cars on the road aren’t going anywhere, anytime soon. Regardless of the brand, cars made in the last ten years are all going to last much longer, and thereby be on the road, than their predecessors from the early 1990’s on back. Two, commercial vehicles, delivery trucks, school and transit buses, eighteen wheelers, etc, are all going to still be on the road. You know what more smaller vehicles mean? More injuries and deaths from accidents, both with large trucks, and with older large cars that will inevitably and absolutely stay on the road.
So, in closing, “Do We Really Need Big Cars?” is best answered with a resounding MYOB.
If you find the question intrusive, what the hell are you doing out on the internet? Shouldn’t you lock yourself up in solitary confinement, not letting anything mind you at all? As long as you are out in society, you will affect society, and society will affect you.
I’m here providing a counter point to the people who think it’s perfectly fine to make everyone else justify their automobile buying decisions.
I would ask you just what the hell is your business in even asking the question? I drive a large sedan, with all wheel drive. Just whose business is it what I drive, and why should I have to even justify buying and driving it? That’s my question. I have my reason. They’re none of anyone’s business.
I ask questions because I’m naturally curious. When I find something I don’t understand, I ask questions to learn more about it. The difference between stupidity and ignorance is asking questions. Anybody can be born stupid, only ignorant people doesn’t ask any questions.
And I ask myself, why do people continue using bigger cars, when they really don’t need it? And then I ask you. If there’s a connection between high gas prices and a surge for small cars, doesn’t that mean it’s an occuring event? And if so, doesn’t that mean it will happen again? And again? And if people are fine with small cars when the prices are high, why not all the time then?
Do higher gas prices hurt my wallet? Oh, hell yes, in ways I don’t even have to describe. Will it affect my buying decision? No, and “no” to the European idea of using tax policy to make it more expensive for me to drive my big, AWD sedan. Do I need the room all the time, or even a majority of the time? No, but that’s in the realm of none of anyone’s business. Same with the AWD, which uses more gas. I don’t care – when I need to be somewhere, especially in this new “normal” of government cutbacks, including less snow plowing in the winter time, I got to be where I got to be, and I have neither the time, nor the desire to seek an alternative, including renting another car. And since explaining my needs, my care for aging parents, etc, amounts to justifying my driving a big sedan, then yes, I find even initiating this topic, in general, to be intrusive. I don’t give a damn about Mother Earth – I give a damn when my mother or my wife’s mother (when she was alive), is in the the emergency room,and I got to be where I got to be., even when that’s a rare occurrence.
Len-A: I don’t agree with your points of view AT ALL – but at least you’ve worked hard to make yourself clear. Thanks for that… (no sarcasm intended)
What should be taxed and sequestered are the CO2 emissions of self-righteous, moralistic do-gooders who deign to dictate what others may or may not do. This would more than offset the greenhouse effects of worldwide bovine flatulence, thereby allowing us freedom-loving, red meat-eating neandethals to enjoy our noxious gas-benching four wheeled death machines guilt-free, along with a 2o oz. porterhouse steak.
You got that right! +1
I’m solidly pro-free market and if the market wants them, I’m pro-big car, pro-small car, pro-whatever vehicle is wanted.
But c’mon guys, enough of this “If I want it and can afford it, I should do as I please and you can all go to hell” attitude. Using that logic, I should be able to cultivate marijuana on the back 40 and have a meth lab in my garage.
There needs to be a better argument. To some degree, the government is going to at least influence (and usually meddle) in some aspects of our lives, regardless of politics.
The question shouldn’t be if you should be able to own a particular type of vehicle in a free market (which, in my opinion, you should); rather, the question is at what cost of money, time or convenience should you be able to do so.
Right now, middle-income Europeans are effectively priced out of the market when it comes to large vehicles through taxes and fuel costs (again, due to taxes). Those in the U.S. are not, but they have to compromise by buying something built on a truck platform because our government has decreed that big cars are bad, but we’ll wink and smile at big trucks.
I suppose there are pros and cons to these two models, but suffice it to say that an even better way might be to just let the free market decide. Either we’ll get relatively fuel efficient large cars out of a CAFE-free marketplace, or we’ll embark on an SUV overdose that will come crashing down if fuel prices skyrocket beyond what we can afford to pay. And then we’ll start driving smaller cars – but this time because we want to, not because the government told us we have to.
“And I ask myself, why do people continue using bigger cars, when they really don’t need it?”-Ingvar
Correction: “When they do not need them ALL the time”! Most people do not have the luxury of having multiple cars for every member of their family, so they do NOT commute in a dumb “Smart” or even a Fit or yaris, but in their regular car they can also use to go on a long trip with th eir family.
In my case, I live in a condominium with one-car garage where the management makes it a big pain to have a second car if you want to park it across the street in their lot. I used to have a second car (an Accord 90 5-speed) which I used around town, did not want to waste the big 740iL, which I bought for highway trips almost exclusively back in 05. But due to the above and other issues, I donated the Accord to charity in May 08 and drive the BMW all the time, even in the winter, with all-season tires, not even snow tires or chains. Fortunately the bnig, heavy and long wheelbase BMW is perfectly good around town too.
But, for those who never lived abroad and believe that Europeans long for large cars and obese SUVs, if I lived in Europe and had to park, I would never torture myself and do it in the Big 740iL every day! I have friends there who own BMW 5s and X3s but do all their city driving in a SMART with start-stop and save 65 Euros a weel (close to $100 a week) on fuel vs before they bought the tiny SMART.
No, most Europeans wouldn’t get into a large car, because as you aptly pointed out, their urban situation makes parking them problematic. Most Americans realize that.
As you pointed out, people don’t have the luxury of having multiple cars, fir multiple purposes. What these critics, European and American alike do not want to even consider, in all their arrogance, we’re pretty much stuck with our current circumstances that affect our buying decision,. You’re in a condo with a one car garage, that even though it sounds like you can afford more than one car, can’t realistically keep two due to the condo management’s regulation. I live in a nice subdivision, which doesn’t get plowed in the winter time until there is eight inches of snow on the ground – last year, five of us help one neighbor’s oldest son push his Toyota Matrix completely out of the sub, through ten inches of snow, past twenty five houses, to get it to the plowed main road. His front wheel drive Matrix was too light to dig it’s own way out of the snow, and he had to go to work. No way am I giving up full size Mercury, nor it’s all wheel drive. (another neighbor has a Honda Fit – he complains that it’s gas mileage is no better than mine in the winter, especially if it snows). Other people have moderate income jobs that preclude them from affording a new, more fuel efficient car, so their stuck with buying the used land yachts of the past, and nursing them along for years. Our metropolitan areas are already laid out. There is nothing people with families can do to diminish their need, however occasional, for a large vehicle, be it a minivan or an SUV. We can’t change where we work, and many of us aren’t going to lose money on our homes in order to move closer., That’s even if that’s feasible – plenty of two income couples, and you often can’t accommodate one spouse without inconveniencing the other.
But no, our American large car critics, and their European allies, have get snide and sanctimonious with the rest of us. Little do they realize that no matter how they justify their point-of-view, the intrusive nature of their attitude, especially people like poster PeteMoran, that feel their view of society’s needs justify intruding into our personal decisions, basically will backfire. It will harden peoples positions, and turn more people against even considering the validity of some of their views.
There is another way of reducing pollution: switching to a different fuel. Hydrogen packs lots of bang, burns clean, and it’s plentiful. I also believe that there are ways of making it cheaply, efficiently, but so far the world’s economy has been pretty much controlled by oil nuts…
Ingvar:
I don’t agree with this article at all. If you look at the third world, MANY people get by with a motorcycle for a family of 3 or 4. Perhaps you don’t need a 50mpg car, you just need a 125cc motorcycle. I’m not sure why you bag on large cars in favor of small cars but not motorcycles since they typically get much better gas mileage than a car (I have read that the KLR650 converted diesel gets ~ 150mpg or so).
We don’t NEED large cars or SUV’s
We don’t NEED small cars
We probably don’t even need motorcycles
At what point do you draw the (arbitrary) line at “I need” vs “I want”?
Here is an example: I own a 600cc motorcycle. I use this for roughly 50% of my yearly mileage. I work a white collar job & I have to be in dress-casual clothes which come folded with me in my backpack. Most of my co-workers use public transport or drive. Each person is making their OWN decision as to what they “need”. Who is to say I shouldn’t purchase a bicycle & ride 3 hours each way or spend 2 hours on public transport?
Because “need” vs “want” is an arbitrary line to be drawn in most cases, there is never going to be a way to convince people they they only “need” a smaller car, any more than I can convince a prius driver he just needs a 250cc motorcycle. Actually, bordering on practical, electric motorcycles might be the way to go assuming you don’t need to travel more than 100km/day and need to go faster than 80km/h.
I am not offended by Ingmar’s article, I don’t think he is trying to tell us what to do or to preach to us. I know where he is coming from.
We can afford large cars in the US due to low gas prices and plenty of space to park in most locations. But while everybody has the right to buy what he or she likes, there is an element of an “arms race” that another poster hinted at.
Before I bought my 98 740iL in Oct 05 (for peanuts, $10.5k fully fixed and detailed inside and out by the owner), I was looking for a large luxury sedan like the 91-99 S-class or E-class, and the BMW 5-series 97-03 because it was available with 5 and 6 sp manuals. But the presence of all these millions of large, heavy and tall SUVs, driven by soccer moms carelessly talking on the phone and applying makeup as they ‘drive’, made it necessary to look for a car with adequate levels of both active and passive safety. The 740iL is an excellent choice on both counts. If I also had kids to carry around, I would go even further and get me an X5, perhaps the M version, or at least the diesel, or, better, a Mercedes GL biggest size SUV, also with the biggest engine.
So I am pushed to buy larger and more powerful vehicles not to “keep up with the Joneses” but to ensure the safety of me and my family. It is similar to the arms race back in the 60s.
My first cousin of same first and last name as I have, lives in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and commutes in a bicycle like everybody else. I would not feel inadequately safe even in a SMART car in those streets. I do not feel unsafe in the tiny civic of my parents, a 91 hatch weighing only 1,875 lbs, 75 hp but plenty of room for 4 or even 5 passengers, because in the old country, all the other cars are as big or even smaller than the civic.
I am not for any regulation, and CAFE has been an idiotic failure, an excuse for incompetent congress to claim they did something. People will not downsize because of CAFE, they have downsized because of high gas prices.
One interesting offshoot on this topic which has not been vetted…..WHY do people buy big cars, or what are they thinking when they do? A poster noted that, last year, when the price of gas shot up to >$4 per gallon in the US, panic ensued….and interestingly, when many people DUMPED their big SUVs, Vans or V-8 cars, they took a bigger financial hit than they would have if they had just kept their cars and paid for the gas…amazing, and really stupid ..which leads me to conclude that few Americans are really rational consumers of anything….basing purchases large and small on EMOTION. I suggest the reason for this is the dumbing down of America caused by our liberal-controlled schools….we don’t teach basic decision-making skills. We don’t teach basic home and consumer economics…..about mortgages, and car loans and insurance and having a home budget and stuff.
I always suggest to people who are buying a car (if they ask my opinion about it) (which these days should be/can be a 6 or 7 year commitment!) “Will you be able to keep this car if gas prices double?”….I think a big problem in the US auto market is a big problem with US consumers in general…..it is not necessarily that we buy cars that are too large, it is that we (are willing to) buy cars that are larger than we can by rights AFFORD for reasons which we can’t truly justify, and making irrational decisions in the process, which the auto companies are only too happy to oblige us on in the interest of profit.
Again, a per-gallon gas tax would serve as a deterrent, and it would provide a “buffer” for the government….in times of economic crisis, the tax could be abated or reduced to allow consumers to keep driving their cars in the event of another oil shock….
Cost of insurance is another factor, and this is not going to make the small car fans happy. My parents have two Ford’s – a 2003 Explorer and a 1997 Escort that is being replaced. The Explorer, six model years newer, costs $1175 a year to insure. Same level of coverage on the six 20years older, smaller Escort – $1350. Same insurance company and policy. Same difference in insurance rates between the two, no matter which insurance company they received quotes from.
I said it before, and I’ll say again, much to the consternation of the large vehicle critics, small cars are less safe, injury rates are higher, so insurance company medical payouts are consequently higher, and the cost of insurance bares that out. If you don’t like it, deal with it.
Cost of insurance is another factor, and this is not going to make the small car fans happy. My parents have two Ford’s – a 2003 Explorer and a 1997 Escort that is being replaced. The Explorer, six model years newer, costs $1175 a year to insure. Same level of coverage on the six years older, smaller Escort – $1350. Same insurance company and policy. Same difference in insurance rates between the two, no matter which insurance company they received quotes from.
I said it before, and I’ll say again, much to the consternation of the large vehicle critics, small cars are less safe, injury rates are higher, so insurance company medical payouts are consequently higher, and the cost of insurance bares that out. If you don’t like it, deal with it.
edited, due to typos
psarhjinian: You “have found ultimate comfort in the Kia Rondo, Honda Element, Nissan Versa and Cube…”
Damn, and I spent all that money on the Bridge of Weir leather seats!
Me thinks you exagerate
I’m a hair over six foot eight, have a long torso and arms, not much spinal curve and I broke my neck as a child. My physiology doesn’t quite map to the human norm.
I’m not kidding, though: the Rondo has probably the best seats—for me—of any car I’ve been in. The VW Golf and Jetta are pretty good, too. The point, though, was to counter Flashpoint’s “Big People Must Have Big Cars” assertion. It’s patently not true.
Everyone should be ‘equal’, earn ‘equal’ amounts for ‘equally’ valid jobs, and treat each other as…. ‘equals’. Once we’ve made this utopia comrade, we should introduce this one car which will equally serve the equal needs of the equals in our socialist paradise. We’ll call this car ‘The Trabant!’
Look, I can see some sense in what you’re saying. However you have two options. Let the free market take it’s course, or use laws and heavy handed government intervention to dictate who can buy what. But start down the line of government intervention and it will NEVER stop. Not until the government has a say in practically anything a person says – does – or buys.
Well said. Very well said indeed.
There are at least three questions in your question:
1. Should some government regulator compel (one way or another) people to buy smaller cars?
2. Should social opprobrium be levied against those who drive big cars (“You piece of trailer trash, you drive an H2!”)?
3. Is purchasing a large car a fundamentally irrational decision?
As you can tell from the responses, those people who read your piece as being focused on on question no. 1, gave what should have been an expected response: one having to do with their political philosophy vs. what they perceive to be yours. But, this is a cars site, not a politics site . . . Next question, please.
2. An equal number interpreted your piece as focusing on question no 2, again, with the usual predictable responses, divided between the new, secular Puritans and the “get the fuck outta my face” libertarians. Nothing new here.
3. The most interesting responses (IMHO) were those who interpreted your piece (or bent the interpretation) as being question no. 3, i.e. “Why does someone buy a car bigger than their apparent needs?”
In my own family, we have that kind of discussion. The youngest of our 3 children is now in college; the other two have graduated are are working in cities other than where we live. Nonetheless, in my youngest daughter’s final year at home, my wife insisted that the replacement for our Saab 9-5 wagon as the primary vehicle be something of the size of a Honda Pilot or Toyota Highlander (she deemed the Buick Enclave/Saturn Outlook, etc. “too big.”) The Pilot has proved its worth in trucking my daughter and her stuff to college once a year, but otherwise, I find it unwieldy on the streets of Washington, DC, where we live (not the suburbs). I, on the other hand, own a Z3, which takes me to work and where ever else I want to go. It is a car that you “wear” like a shoe. My spouse complains that it’s a “useless” car, but I point out that it is quite useful at its principal purpose — which is carrying me around. Part of this is a matter of taste and part of it is what you’ve become accustomed to. If you like a car that you “wear” then, obviously, something large is not going to be pleasant. On the other hand, if you like the feeling of being in a protective cocoon, a small car is unlikely to give you that feeling. Obviously, if I had to have only one car, it would not be a Z3. I would own something that would meet my largest capacity needs. The Saab, for all of its right-size virtues, was not very comfortable on those few occasions when the entire family was at home; the Pilot does a better job of that.
And, if this is about gasoline consumption, CO2 production and all that, the fact that I live within the Washington city limits saves more fuel than any mini-vehicle possibly could if I were to live in the suburbs and be forced to drive to everything. Which is a different way of saying that, for me, the fuel consumption of my vehicles is essentially irrelevant.
You raised two interesting points: One, if you have to to have only one car, it would be something that would meets your capacity needs. Two, living in a city is different than “liv(ing) in the suburbs and be(ing) forced to drive to everything.”
Both points describe the majority of Americans. We live in the suburbs, we have to drive to everything, and we pretty much need a vehicle that meets our largest capacity needs, even when those needs are only occasional. In fact, we find the suggestion that we seek alternatives for our occasional largest capacity needs to be quite idiotic.
I, for one, will drive what I want.
So, you need an SUV, because… You live in the suburb? Well, that makes sense…
Listen Len_A, I won’t argue with you anymore. You have made your point perfectly clear, and then some… I understand what you are saying, you will drive whatever the hell you want, and it’s not anyones business if you do.
This thought exercise is not inteded to “tell people what to do”. This is merely a “what if” scenario. Yes, I know perfectly well that I can buy and drive whatever I want, the question is, do I really have to? Do I really need a bigger car than most of my needs? Or are there alternatives? Is Extra Large always the best way to go? Think outside the box, please…
I didn’t say I needed an SUV. Your editorial said “big cars”, although these days, I suppose that encompasses all large vehicles.
I’ve tried thinking outside the box – it basically comes down to sacrificing both the convenience of having enough passenger and cargo room for the rare occasions that I need them, plus sacrificing some safety, and for what?
On another post, I stated that my retiree parents are replacing their 1996 Ford Escort wagon. My father did look at a Ford Focus, that is until he found that the insurance on it was going to run nearly $2500 a year. Now he’s settling on either a Ford Fusion or a Ford Taurus. If he goes the Fusion route, he would get only two or three MPG less than the Focus, have a more room, more cargo space, and pay a third less for insurance. If he goes the Ford Taurus route, which is a big car, admittedly, he would get 6 MPG less. insurance would be 40% lower than the Focus. Where’s the economic incentive to even consider sacrificing the room and yes, the safety, of the Taurus over the Fusion? (Don’t suggest another brand – he’s a Ford retire, so that’s not going to happen).
It’s not a question of arguing. It’s a question of thinking outside the box to accomplish nothing – the large sedans on the road toady would still be there, even if we removed the possibility of buying any new ones today. Collision damage claims and injury rates, with their corresponding insurance payments, are statistically much higher on “B” and “C” class cars than they are on “CD” class and larger vehicles. SUV’s aren’t selling well today, so vilifying them is pointless.
And all the talk of CO2 production as related to automobiles is equally pointless, because power generation emits far more than the entire current fleet of cars and trucks on the road do, and off-the-shelf technology, if implemented over the course of the next five years, could reduce power generations greenhouse gas emissions by an amount equal to removing every single car off the road. It’s not going to happen because the individual automobile, individual automobile owner, and the auto industry has been successfully vilified, and attention has been diverted from more effective ways of protecting the environment.
Not to mention that I’ll say it again in this post that it is seriously disingenuous to post an editorial about virtues and vices of big cars today, and use a picture and comment on an early 1980’s era Lincoln, as if it typified the large sedan of today. It is intellectually dishonest.
And in terms of thinking outside the box, I’d like to know how a large sedan of today, such as a 2010 Ford Taurus, Toyota Avalon, or Chevrolet Impala qualifies as “extra large”? I can park any of those three in garage space that would have housed a 1981 Ford Granada/Mercury Monarch, which at that time, only had the interior space slightly less than that of todays Camry/Accord/Fusion. Not to mention that by the time this next round of CAFE standards kicks in, the “large sedan” of 2015 or 2016 will be only a bit larger than a Camry or Fusion.
Again, I would say this is a completely disingenuous argument to be made against today’s large sedans.
Finding excuses to continue your crusade against this editorial runs awfully thin, my friend. First, I didn’t choose the picture featured on top of this article. Second, the car seen in the background, a Lincoln Mk V, is mentioned in the text as an example of a 70’s gas guzzler, thus merely an example of Detroits inability to think ahead of times. Thirdly, editor Sajeev Mehta owns one. It is an internal in-joke between him and me, as his usage of the car inspired my thinking about this topic.
Though I think it’s rather cute that you believe the usage of said picture is “seriously disingenuous” and “intellectually dishonest”. If that is all you could find after 240 comments, then it was a good discussion. I’ll think I’ll put that on my wall.
I thought you weren’t going to argue with me any more? You didn’t pick the picture? OK, I’ll give you that. Detroit can’t think ahead of the times? That’s your opinion, and I suppose that’s appropriate for an editorial, but my response is equally appropriate. What, editorial opinion runs one way? Give me a break. The whole premise of the editorial rubs me the wrong way, and I respond. I’ll point out that when I said I find the premise of your editorial to be intrusive, you asked me what I was doing on the Internet. Now you’re griping because I respond to your posts. Would I be out of line I if I flipped your question around on you? If you don’t like the idea of readers posting opinions back at you, why are you porting your editorial on the Internet (as opposed to printed media)? Fair enough question?
“Finding excuses to continue your crusade against this editorial runs awfully thin” Fair enough, because I find the question your editorial asks to run awful thin as well. “Do soccer-moms really need a Ford Expedition or even a Flex to haul the kids and ice-hockey gear? Do we really need mini-vans with V6-engines, or has that class grown too big with time?” Two of my soccer-mom neighbors nearly spat out their coffee when I read them that line. You think I’ve found excuses to continue my crusade, yada, yada, yada? Jeez, I wish you could heard their reaction to that line, starting with practically screaming how even more well off school districts have cancelled bus service to take those soccer-moms kids to away games – no caravan of soccer-moms (& soccer-dads), no after-school sports. I wouldn’t have known about that, as my wife & I have no kids, but I do have a niece in private school, and my sibling tells me that’s the policy there as well. Is that a fair enough answer to your editorial’s question? And you may think I obstinate? You should hear the comments I got from my middle class, suburban American neighbors. Are you familiar with the phrase “getting your ears pinned back”? You want them to think outside the box? They’ll tell you that they have too many things on their plate to even consider “thinking outside the box”, and they find the idea of using tax policy, i.e. the gas guzzler tax, as an attempt to modify their buying and driving behavior, to be even more offensive than I do. Hell, compared to these parents, I’m a wuss in my complaints.
And my hats off to Sajeev Mehta for owning, and driving how ever often he does, a Lincoln Mark V. Doubly so if he drives solo.
“If you don’t like the idea of readers posting opinions back at you, why are you porting your editorial on the Internet.”
Of course I like readers posting opinions back, that’s why I’m writing. Actually, I haven’t had this much fun in weeks. Being controversial, stirring up a shit-storm, is highly addictive. I have never ever written something that has stirred up this much debate. And of course, after a while, the discussion gets a life of its own, I can’t control it, I can’t respond to all, I don’t have all the answers, or any answer for that matter. I just like to get people to think for their own once in a while, whatever the outcome may be.
“Two of my soccer-mom neighbors nearly spat out their coffee when I read them that line.”
I’d suggest you tell them to write a response and post it here. I’d really want to hear what they actually have to say.
And my hats off to Sajeev Mehta as well. Ironically, I would like nothing more than to own and drive a truly remarkable land-yacht. The Mark V is high on my list, together with an early sixties Continental Convertible, a late 70’s Continental, a ’59 Cadillac four door flat-top, and perhaps a Jeep Grand Wagoneer or International Travelall.
You know, I suggested they register and write a response, too. I even told them that I get tired of being the mouth-piece for that point-of-view (actually, I never get tired of it – we’re in 100% agreement on one thing, it IS addictive – the spiritedm the better). Unfortunately, I don’t think TTAC terms of service will allow me to post the language in their response. Something about all of us should go do something to ourselves that is anatomically impossible.
My wife was wondering what I was arguing about on line,and after reading your editorial and the responses, pointed out that when it comes to business or contractor vehicles, in our subdivision of 120 homes, we have ten contractors here – four separate landscape contractors, a drywall contractor, a commercial painter, a carpenter, a commercial building HVAC contractor, a building security products contractor, and a handyman service, all but one operating out of their homes, and all of them driving either F-250 size pick ups or Econoline/Safari size vans. That, in turn brought to mind on of my wife’s pet driving peeves, and one of the reason she bought a Ford Escape when her traded in her Contour in 2001 – our of 120 homes in our subdivision alone, with five empty due to foreclosure last year, we still managed to have 30 people using contractors to cut their lawns. That means not only driving around full size pick up trucks and the trailers they have behind them, but having to watch for commercial lawn mowers flying out into the street, doing a quick 180 and then back up on the lawns. We never had to deal with that before, and after moving here in 1998, my wife, as she puts, had enough of three years of playing “dodge ’em” in small car, and now refuses to drive anything smaller, or lower to the ground, than her Escape.
They don’t bother me much – my pet driving peeve is trucks with snow plows. When I drive a small car in the winter, frequently a rental when mine is being serviced, I have to confess the snow plows and picks with snow plows scare the daylights out of me. I know it’s irrational, but somehow, I feel less intimidated driving my large sedan.
I don’t have a problem with big cars. I don’t even have a problem with Expeditions or Yukons. I do feel some annoyance at Excursions – out of 120 homes, with THREE Excursions in our subdivsion, and my only complaint is it’s so hard to see around them when you’re behind them, especially when they’re towing a camper or a boat. But it’s their choice. They can afford it, and who I am to bitch about it?
Ingvar: So you essentially wrote the article just to stir up a storm, and because “it is addictive”?? That’s kind of silly.
Not more than anything else that is written on these pages. If you want un-controversial editorials, there’s always Car & Driver.
Ingvar, Len_A finally talked me into registering and posting a response, so if you don’t care for my POV, it’s all your fault.
After reading your editorial, and the responses (& tirades against big cars), I don’t know where to begin. First, Len_A referred to many of ayou large vehicle critics as sanctimonious and righteous. After a review of the posts, allow me to say that Len understated that. “Sanctimonious and righteous: barely begins to describe it. How dare any of you tell me what kind of car I or my husband drive, let alone tell me how to live? You Canadian and Europeans, I might suggest that you come here and try living in our suburbs before you pass judgement; otherwise, sit down and shut up!
Having got that out of my system, Ingvar, I have two kids, twins (a boy and a girl). They’re in their mid teens now, but when they were little, my God did they bicker. Would you like to run your errands with two bicker, and sometimes fighting, children sitting behind you? First of all, in almost all states, you may not allow a child under thirteen years old to sit in the front passenger seat. That means driving a small car, like a Civic, Corolla, or Focus is out of the question if you want to seat them SEPARATELY. And I don’t need any of you a-holes judging my, or my husband’s, parenting skills. Separating quarreling children is sometimes the only way to keep the peace. That means at least one of us needs a large vehicle. Until we bought our Lincoln MKT, and my husbands Freestyle, we had nothing but minivans since the kids could walk. For those occasions that one of us has to go out with both kids, using the second and third row to separate them has been a God send.
Both my son and daughter are quite active in sports. Our son plays football and baseball, while our daughter runs cross country and plays softball As involved parents, we truck the kids, their team mates, and some sports gear around with us. Once a week sometimes. Sometimes more often. Schedules often overlap, so I take one, and my husband takes the other. That means two large vehicles in this family, and I’m not going to apologize for it.
Grocery shopping, spring gardening and landscaping, and home repairs/improvements necessitate something bigger than even a midsize car. Guess what? My husband and I figure that despite this, and taking the kids to school, doctors, sports, shopping, etc, that at least 75%% of the time, we drive alone in our cars. So that means one of you sanctimonious, self righteous bastards see us driving alone, and get all high and mighty because we’re not using our cars to the max of their passenger or cargo capacity. Spare me.
Len_A and others said it, and I’ll repeat it – we’ll drive what we want, you drive what you want. Mind your own business. Sometime back in this blog, Len_A posted that he found your editorial intrusive. Again, Len_A is the master of the understatement.
Hey there SoccerMom. We live in the suburbs too and our two kids play sports too. Not saying you MUST drive anything other than what you want to but we get by just fine with a 1st gen CR-V and when we need it – a small trailer. We’ve been getting by this way for 221K miles now. Four cylinder and a 5 speed manual. When I was a kid in the 1980s my family got by just fine with smallish cars (Celica, T-Bird, Citation, Celebrity, Lumina, etc) and most of them had less power than my ~146 HP CR-V.
My point is not that I’m saying you CAN’T have whatever you choose to drive but let’s not be silly and say you GOTTA have something big to live in the suburbs and have a couple kids.
A few weeks ago I hauled four scouts and gear for 9 kids all with that “little” CR-V and a Brenderup 1205S covered trailer. it can be done quite comfortably.
Whatever your priorities are.
@soccer_mom_mkt1 – if anyone of them answers, without the usual anti big car rhetoric, I’ll be shocked. They’re just a small number of very vocal busy bodies that want to tell the rest of us how to live. I wish to God they would all just knock it off.
Well, Soccer mom Mkt 1, it’s good to hear from you. And it’s interesting to hear what you have to say, smug remarks aside. And what I gather from your viewpoint, you seem to have the need of a really big car. The queastion is: How big is enough for Your needs?
I don’t know what you are driving, but say that you were driving an SUV, like a Ford Expedition. And say that you Expedition would feel every one of your needs. Is a large bloated SUV really the answer to all your prayers? Or are there alternatives?
The only thing I’m saying, is that Big is not always the right answer. Do you really need that extra burden? The weight? The insurance? The extra payments in gas? The gas guzzler tax? Or could you do with something smaller and better?
This is not me being sanctimouneous and righteous, this is me wondering how you perhaps could live a better life, with less burdens, less expenses, paying less for gas, having a car that is better suited to your needs.
Ultimately, You are the ones paying for all of this. Wouldn’t you be glad to pay less?
Well, Soccer mom Mkt 1, it’s good to hear from you. And it’s interesting to hear what you have to say, smug remarks aside. And what I gather from your viewpoint, you seem to have the need of a really big car. The queastion is: How big is enough for Your needs?
I don’t know what you are driving, but say that you were driving an SUV, like a Ford Expedition. And say that you Expedition would fill every one of your needs. Is a large bloated SUV really the answer to all your prayers? Or are there alternatives?
The only thing I’m saying, is that Big is not always the right answer. Do you really need that extra burden? The weight? The insurance? The extra payments in gas? The gas guzzler tax? Or could you do with something smaller and better?
This is not me being sanctimouneous and righteous, this is me wondering how you perhaps could live a better life, with less burdens, less expenses, paying less for gas, having a car that is better suited to your needs.
Ultimately, You are the ones paying for all of this. Wouldn’t you be glad to pay less?
Ingvar, I can’t answer you in a short post, so please forgive me if I get wordy. If you go back and read my post, my husband drives a Ford Freestyle and I drive a Lincoln MKT. The MKT is the turbocharged model,the EcoBoost. I don’t know about The Truth About Cars reviewers, but I get about the same mileage with the MKT that my husband gets with a 2006 Freestyle – not what you calla gas hog. My previous vehicles have been Ford and Chrysler minivans. Every generation of vehicle seems to be better on gas, even if it’s a little bit, than the previous generation. We’ve been very fortunate, and this splurged a bit on the Lincoln, but we still have need for the larger vehicles. My husband is meticulous on maintenance record and gas purchase records. The Lincoln MKT gets better real world gas mileage than the 2000 Chrysler Town and Country AWD we used to have. By over four and sometimes five miles a gallon. Despite the 2000 Chrysler being rated 15 MPG in the city, I was luck to get 13. The MKT gets me 17 to 19 in the city. I think the mileage ratings are 17 MPG, and my husband and Len_A both said that is under a harder mileage test than the 2000 Chysler.
I have to ask -what’s the complaint? Because it’s not a Mini Cooper? One person at my health club “suggested” a Scion Xb would serve as well – r-i-g-h-t. One of our neighbors had, emphasis on had a Scion Xb – several neighbors had to push him through the snow last winter, three times, when he became stuck. So, no, it won’t do. And my husband and I, like Len_A and his wife, will not willing give up our all wheel drive.
Len’s a good friend of ours, and I know he mentioned in on of previous posts how big a headache it can be to be parents of active children and teens. Well, he and his wife empathize, but trust an actual parent: it’s difficult, sometimes impossible, to go without at least one large vehicle, and having his and hers is a blessing. They aren’t Expeditions or Excursions. Did Len mention that there are two whole Excursions in our neighborhood. They both tow big campers and boats.
To answer the question about doing without big cars, you have to specify why we should do without them.
1. carbon emissions
2. opec
3. peak oil
4. they take too much space in a city.
Then you figure out the cost of each of these externalities, and tax fuel accordingly.
So basically, one group of people gets to use governmental tax authority, to tell some of the remaining groups of people how to live. No thanks, under any set of circumstances. Three of those four “criteria” are better answered through other avenues,a dn the fourth, “too much room…” is a big “none of anyone’s business”.
Unfortunately it’s human nature to live at or slightly above our means. You will struggle to find a rich person not living in a big house, or driving a “fancy” car. Only when prices go up, will the demand for “excessive” size reduce…
Until then, we can tell all the fat-assses that Mcdonalds is bad for them, but they’ll keep stuff their faces till they face a heart attack…
That depends on what you consider “excessive size” as far as a car is concerned. I think, on the part of those who do not like large cars, there’s far too much of a judgmental attitude toward those that drive large cars.
Oh, and it doesn’t matter if their heart attacks lead to a healhty person having to put more towards taxes etc. to foot the ER bills. How dare you encroach on my right to Mickey Ds???
I once had a 1981 Eldorado…got lousy mileage (about 13mpg) ….my operating costs were little more than gas.
Dynamic88, you surprise me – being a cyclist an’ all. It seems you don’t have problems with causing excessive tail-pipe emissions ?
Well, I have just started biking recently – after a gap of 41 years – and things are much different than what I remember in the late sixties.
Yes, my motor skills aren’t what they were. Some have said my attempts to manage staying on the bike produce a style more suited to the rodeo than the road. Let me be the first to admit. Though not to a police officer just now.
Yes, I do wobble a little (a lot) but hey people I’m not out there to mount a display worthy of Cirque du Soleil.- It’s just me, going down the road for groceries. So cut me some slack. Sure I’ve made one or two motorists swerve, but lately:
“Sorry pal but I’ve kept out of trouble this far, now let’s see if you can”
has become my new mantra. either that or “Stop sign. What STOP sign ?”
While I’ve mentioned it, regarding the putting of a STOP sign at the bottom of every steep hill. What’s with that ? What were they thinking ? Yeah, some silly excuse “like there’s a lot of cross traffic at the intersection “. Pardon me, but let me take my own chances. Replace that Stop sign with a Yield sign. Let me be accountable for my own actions. Isn’t that what brakes are for ! Look I’m all for stopping. Aren’t we all ? Particularly if there has been an accident and what looks to be bodies lying on the road. Preferably on other side of the road, of course, so that we can move on. When we’ve seen enough…..
But getting back to Stopping at a STOP sign placed at the bottom of a hill. It is just plain wrong. For one thing it’s bad physics. That’s right. I need to come through that intersection at 45mph, with a Heath Leger expression on my face, in order to get back UP the hill on the other side. Do the math. Half MV squared equals MgH. I come into the intersection with lots of V which I am now going to turn into H on the other side of the intersection without having to pedal one iota, and some out-of-wedlock planner at City hall wants to spoil my fun, I mean spoil my momentum, reducing my V to zero with a Stop sign – all in the name of safety. Trading off my perceived safety at the intersection in order that I can continue on with the freedom to enjoy a perfectly good heart attack while pedalling up the steep hill that lies on the other side. All nice and tidy with me having the not so peaceful death in a place that is out of harm’s way so to speak.
Those tail-pipe emissions are always a sign of a problem whether emanating from humans or vehicles. Invariably from the larger ones I’ve noticed. At least humans are easily diagnosed, like an initial ingrowing toenail which under my doctor’s care swiftly progressed to a colonoscopy exam. I am not alone in this. Apparentally this is a seasonal thing that occurs in the medical community anytime they release a block of new episodes for House.
My experience from the vantage of the gutter, sober of course, is enhanced because I am moving in the same direction as those passing large vehicles which may also include the occasional 1981 Eldorado no doubt. I am therefore in a position to get an extended whiff of not good from their tailpipes. It is one thing for a V8 engine to last 200,000 miles but since they can’t seem to hold their engine tune up five minutes from the garage I think its time we demanded fuel injection on all vehicles clocking more than say 4000 miles/yr.
on average, 90,000,000 tons of pollutants are expelled into earth’s fragile atmosphere every day.
so what do the severely self-centered among us think actually happens to all the crap that civilized man has been ‘discarding’ into its environment since the beginning of the industrial revolution more than two hundred years ago?
it doesn’t simply float away into outer space. it doesn’t magically disappear. and it doesn’t stick around ‘harmlessly’ just because we may not always be able to see it, smell it or taste it.
Your point being?
My “midsize” 4×4 V6 pickup averages 17MPG.
I spent the first half of my life wanting to change the world.
Now I’m 47 and just dont give a crap anymore.
Maybe we should all move into caves and burn Yak oil for heat and eat leaves and wild berries.
Imagine how much energy was used to produce the computer youre using right now. Not to mention the Indonesian slave labor used to build it.
Excuse me, but now I’m going to go into my bedroom and play my guitar made from endangered tropical hardwoods.
Ahh sweet sarchasm…
@cheezeweggie – well said. Don’t forget, ever once in a while, polish that guitar with some good wax. You know, the kind made with the tropically sourced carnuba wax and petroleum derived polishes and solvents.
Automakers spend hundreds of dollars per car to advertise them. If this conditioning weren’t successful, it wouldn’t be done. So many people who say they need a large vehicle, or that they do so because there’s no law against it, are really just obediently doing what they’ve been told to do. Like the ones who buy a turbo diesel quad cab dualy 4×4 pickup to drive to commute to the office.
This a generalization of course. There are perfectly reasonable and efficient uses for large vehicles, such as freight trucks and buses. This does not undermine the fact that many North Americans use vehicles far larger than they need. (The Dutch are taller than North Americans, yet seem to be able to use smaller cars.) Rather than explain why they need them, or make better choices, people get defensive and go on the attack. Yatter about freedom and safety.
Well, let them buy large vehicles. Put bar codes on vehicles so that when gas is bought, the price is jacked up for larger and less efficient vechicles. If someone really needs to use a large vehicle, then the extra cost should be easily absorbed.
@brandloyalty:
“This does not undermine the fact that many North Americans use vehicles far larger than they need. ” – Who appointed you the authority to determine what we need? Most Americans don’t have the option of having a vehicle for every need, including the occasional need for a large vehicle, and they shouldn’t have to put up with halfassed opinions otherwise.
“Well, let them buy large vehicles. Put bar codes on vehicles so that when gas is bought, the price is jacked up for larger and less efficient vechicles. If someone really needs to use a large vehicle, then the extra cost should be easily absorbed.” – Like that will ever happen. Another lame suggestion from the segment of society that thinks those who don’t agree with them should be punished. Screw that.
It’s an interesting argument.
“We are Americans and we have the right to do and buy what we want.” This is capitalism and over consumption at it’s finest. But a privilege, as in a driver’s license, is not a right.
Smokers held vehemently to their “right” to smoke in public not too long ago. Yet today smokers are viewed as 2nd hand death lepers.
When is it OK for government intervention? Smoking affects people around the smoker. Thus the public ban. Obesity puts a strain on healthcare and tax payer dollars. Thus the proposed fatty foods ban.
Today’s argument is large cars and SUVs affect others due to resource consumption.
The “car choice” argument is really a larger social discussion between government, its people, and the ability to enact / accept change. We’re Americans – there won’t be a law passed against large cars. There will be federal guidelines for better fuel economy and cleaner cars.
The choice will always be there and it’s all relative. Today’s Town Car in 1970 would be a Prius both in size and efficiency in comparison to an Mk V. Some people will drive the most efficient option and others will pick different options that best suit them. What we really need is to bring all cars large and small to higher levels of efficiency. It’ll be a change driven by society as well as the government.
Today’s argument is large cars and SUVs affect others due to resource consumption. We’ve been hearing that for decades, and yet, the resources are still there. Recently, several business publications had stories about new oil finds that were very large.
What we really need is to bring all cars large and small to higher levels of efficiency. It’ll be a change driven by society as well as the government. – Very true, on both counts.
“Tax the bigger cars and subsidize the smaller ones. And let nature have its course.”
This could not be a more self-contradictory statement.
“Tax the bigger cars and subsidize the smaller ones. And let nature have its course.”
This could not be a more self-contradictory statement.
No kidding.
No we don’t, but that doesn’t change the fact that people will still want them.
The bigger problem here is this: I wouldn’t exactly feel uncomfortable about people mucking about in big cars if they knew how to drive them in the first place.
It’s really amazing just how horribly undisciplined the average American driver really is. Eating, putting on your makeup, spending too much time on your cell phone or radio, being completely distracted from the road… it’s because of stupid crap like that why we have so many car accidents in the U.S. I could care less how big your car is, just as long as you don’t try to pose a threat to all of the other drivers out on the road. If you honestly think that you have the right to be a negligent driver, you have no right to own a car in the first place.
And I can honestly say that, because most American drivers really have no skill whatsoever. Just the fact that 95% of American cars out on the road are mostly automatics really brings my point closer to home.
Stop promoting irresponsible driving, and then maybe the issue about needing a big car or not wouldn’t be such a big deal.
Do we NEED large vehicles for general purpose commuter and errands duty? No. Absolutely not.
I’ve traveled long distances in aircooled VWs, a mid-80s Rabbit ‘vert, long trips in a ’97 VW Cabrio, and our 1st gen CR-V. Each car has been plenty big for short trips even carry four or five people. The limitation has been what to do with our luggage. Recently we purchased a Brenderup 1205S trailer and it is light enough to be pulled by anything. We carried 500 lbs of firewood home this evening 100 miles over the TN mountains from Grandma’s house. Still gets ~23 mpg towing like this. Lightly loaded with camping gear or luggage it’s hard to know it’s even back there.
Do we NEED large vehicles for general purpose commuter and errands duty? No. Absolutely not.
I’ve traveled long distances in aircooled VWs, a mid-80s Rabbit ‘vert, long trips in a ‘97 VW Cabrio, and our 1st gen CR-V. Each car has been plenty big for short trips even carry four or five people. The limitation has been what to do with our luggage.
Ridiculous. Maybe idiotic. No, defiantly idiotic. Look, pal, if a small car works for you,fine. But don’t tell me, or any other parent raising a family of active children that we can compromise on cargo room. Doesn’t work that way. So save you nonsensical “absolute(s)” for yourself, and stay out of our business.
Soccer Mom, may I ask, why do you take this topic so personal?
We’re all discussing here on equal terms. I find it interesting that you and Len A find this topic intrusive, like all the rest of the people having another point of view were doing you wrong personally, merely thinking in another direction than you. It is not “they” who should stay out of “your” business, it is “you” that are engaging in a discussion with other people, having different opinions. Opinions are like taste, they come in all sorts and sizes.
I don’t think there’s really any “wrong” or “right” opinion in this matter. At the end of the day, all there is, is different opinions. Stating an opinion, however, can never be wrong. You’ll just have to accept there are people out there that doesn’t agree with you, as well as they have to accept there are people out there that doesn’t agree with them, like people like you. But if they have to STFU just because you want them to stay out of your business, then there’s clearly something wrong in the way we communicate on this board.
The concern that a lot of us have is that it progresses from “stating an opinion” to petitioning government to implement and institutionalize that opinion, via either CAFE or gas taxes. When gas prices spiked last year, the vitriol against the auto industry and large vehicles drowned out every opportunity for the average person (and there are more of us than you see posting on the internet, in fact we’re about half of all new car buyers) to speak out about our own needs.
The fact, Ingvar, that some of us find it intrusive is that’s how we feel about. It’s not this board – it’s the whole attitude of some people that they can take their beliefs, about how they perceive others habits affect them, and then act on those beliefs. Like I said, in the past, those of us who want our purchase and driving decisions to be left to us, feel we’re being drowned out by a small, but very vocal group. And if past history is an indicator, some member of that group will look at what I just wrote, and say that their beliefs are so much more accurate than anyone else’s, that they have a right to drown out our response. It’s not indicative of this board. It’s indicative of the subject matter and group of people’s response. Look at for a minute from our point-of-view – how do you think we feel about being told that our very presence on the road annoys, and in some cases even angers, some people. You’d get defensive, too. Or how if we complain about the price of gas, because we drive a large car, our voicing our opinion annoys or angers people. The strange thing is that you son’t hear us bitching at some people of buying their small car, but it’s OK to question us about our choice. Again, someone is going to say that the subject is so serious, and their “green” opinion is so righteous, that yes, they get to question us.
I’m not going to speak for Soccer, but if some people want to drive a small car, that’s fine for them. My wife doesn’t want to drive herself in anything larger than her Escape. But don’t raise the general question if I can consider driving something smaller than my big car – it’s my choice, and even asking me if I can get by with something smaller is intrusive. It’s my choice to drive what I want, and that choice should be made unmolested by anyone in society.
I would suggest you go back and read some of the responses by other board members who said “Yes” , they perceive our choice affects them on the road, because they drive a small car, and they have the right to question us and complain about or choices. Examples:
Demetri: “I wouldn’t care about what other people drive if I didn’t have to share the road with them. As it is, they scare the hell out of me. Every time one of those lumbering heaps pull up on my ass, I know that if I have to brake they’re heading straight up it because it can’t brake or maneuver worth a damn.”
PeteMoran: “So to be “safer” than you, I find myself having to drive a larger car than you which is clearly NUTS and has a direct cost to the community and me. Your choice influences another’s choice, which results in an expense in the community. Other people should (and do) have a say in that and ought to be asking questions about the sustainability of those choices.”
My emphasis on that last sentence.
golden2husky: “Watching all those drivers on the news filling their 4500 pound vehicles and bitching about the spike in prices made me ill. You made your choice, chest beating, flag waving and all. Now pay up and shut up.”
So because we drive a large car, when gas prices spike, we’re supposed to keep our heads down and shut up?
Why does Soccer_Mom take the topic so personally? Maybe for the same reason I do, and board member jimmy2x put it very well on the first page of the comments:
“The big problem with all too many government regulators is, that no more how noble the intention, it isn’t long before we are told that the original law/policy didn’t go far enough and we need MORE law/policy.
I’ve always been suspicious of people who wanted to implement revolutionary policies for the good of the “people”, citizens or mankind in general. Too often it winds up being good for the professional bureaucrats and crappy for all the rest of us.”
And after comments like PeteMoran’s, don’t tell me that some people aren’t actively trying to get government to implement and institutionalize that opinion. That’s why some of us speak up and speak out. The subject matter is intrusive.
” how do you think we feel about being told that our very presence on the road annoys, and in some cases even angers, some people. ”
In Sweden, there’s a ban on smoking in public places, like bus stations/train stations, all cafés, all restaurants, all places were the public meets. Being a smoker, I found that intrusive. What goes better together than coffee and cigarettes? What’s more enjoyable than ending your meal with a good cigar? However, even I have to relent and come to terms with the situation. Not only that, I actually like how much better it feels to go out nowadays, not smelling like you was brought up in a tobacco-field every time you feel for a beer or a coffee.
The point is, the ban may be intrusive for me personally, on the other hand, my smoking is intrusive for other people. So how should we do? All the smokers could just line up all the non-smokers on a big line and shoot them, and then be done with it. Or we would just have to find a solution were all can live happy together.
I’m not an island of my own. How much I really want things to happen, I just have to accept that I live in a society were I have to bend to conformative rules for the common good, so as much people can live as much happily they could ever do, regarding on the circunstances. It’s tough, but that’s what life is, living in a society with millions and billions of people. If you don’t like the rules of society, there’s always the survivalist way, trying to start a new society under different rules somewhere else.
That’s an easy one. I don’t smoke, and don’t like the smell or the habit. Let the smokers congregate at cafes/restaurants/bars where smoking IS allowed. Keep the other places smoke free.
Sorry – I know I sort of ruined your point… ;)
Ingvar, this is going to be a long response:
I don’t have a problem with banning smoking in certain public places, and but frankly, the idea of large cars being analogous to smokers, with small car owners being the nonsmokers, is a stretch.
After giving some thought to this, I find your answer a bit curious, as basically, those of us with large vehicles are being expected to “conform” to the wishes of those who don’t have large vehicles. When you asked, in response to Soccer_Mom’s post, why she seemed to take it so personally, and that you found it interesting that she & I were the only one’s who found the premise behind the editorial intrusive, I posted several examples of people who flat out said they had the right to not only judge what we drove, but insist on a say in what we buy.
I’m going to phrase this as politely as I can:
I live my life according to my standards, and as a first generation American, the son of European immigrants, I believe in my absolute rights as an individual over “bend(ing) to conformative rules for the common good” What I drive, as people perceive it NOT under any set of circumstances, the same as a smoker, like yourself, puffing away while I eat. That analogy is not based on reality. All cars burn fuel, even plug-in electrics derive the majority of that electricity from fossil fuel based power generation (and I have twenty-five years experience, as an industrial sales rep, dealing with power generation, as much as other heavy industries). Whatever environmental problems we have, the vilification of the automobile is an inaccurate way of dealing with problems that are infinitely better handled by pursuing other sources of greenhouse gases. Unfortunately, the public’s naiveté has swallowed the nonsense (of vilifying the automobile) hook, line and sinker.
Be that as it may, what I drive, as long as it’s a legal vehicle to buy and own, is not anyone else’s business unless I’m driving it in an unsafe manner. Just my large vehicles existence on the road, along side your smaller cars, doesn’t come close to meeting the criteria of “unsafe” no matter how many times you try argue otherwise. Those of you, here in the United States, who favor small cars, you are well within your rights to buy, own, and drive a small car. However you perceive how my larger sedan, or crossover, or minivan, or pickup, or SUV affects you on the road – that is part and parcel of driving a small car. You have to learn to live with it, and by now, you should have already learned to do so. Larger vehicles are going to continue to exist on the road for a long time, even if CAFE rises sharply. In case you small car owners haven’t noticed, all makes of cars have seriously improved in the last decade. Longevity is no longer the domain of of non Detroit based auto makers. Today’s large Ford or GM sedan, or crossover, or minivan, along with the large sedans,SUV’s, crossovers and minivans of Honda, Toyota, and Nissan, are going to be on the road with you for many, many, many years to come. Read that, and get that point into your heads. Every large vehicle on the road, especially those built after 2000, of any make, has the capability of being around for hundreds of thousands of miles with only basic maintenance. They will live on as used cars for a very long, long time.
That is why, from an environmental standpoint, unless you outlaw the existing fleet, absolutely nothing you do or propose, for new automobiles, is going to have a meaningful or measurable impact on the environment. The existing cars are going to stay around for a long, ling time – many times longer than the previous generation.
The American society has not changed so much that you have the right to vilify our choice of daily drivers, or us as people. There is no dialog to be had. You drive what you like, we drive what we like, and everyone minds their manners. You don’t get to tell us off for driving a larger car than you like to drive, and I aim this at some of you, you certainly don’t get to even tell us that we don’t get to complain about fuel prices because we chose a large vehicle.
Those of you living else where in the world, until you have accurate, up-to-date knowledge of what our daily lives are like, and how most Americans make their vehicle choices, you have not a clue what we can get by with, and at any rate, mind your own business. You resent, with much justification, Americans telling you how to live. Environmental concerns do not give you a license to tell us how to live.
“So how should we do? All the smokers could just line up all the non-smokers on a big line and shoot them, and then be done with it.”
Not likely, since nonsmokers seriously outnumber smokers here in America. Ingvar, your replies all show what my husband calls a European mindset. I don’t know how long you’ve been in the USA, but I don’t believe you have a handle on what the average suburban family life is like. Not as it relates to our choice of cars.
Len A, you called it. They all want to tell us how to live, under the guise of some grander, more noble “collective good”. People like us won’t ever get the last word in with these people. Good on you and Ingvar for keeping it civil.
as long as the tax isn’t crippling, i’m okay with that. ppl keep making these arguments about how we should be free to do whatever we want but I actually think there is enough evidence to show that wasteful technology hurts us all. so we should discourage it as a nation. if its discouraged it will fall to a number that will not effect us negatively. this is okay with me. no body wants to have their twinkie taken away no matter how much its in their best interest for them to do so, so they will cry about it using whatever rationalization they can. as long as its a tax and not a complete ban on these gas wasters im okay. i think ppl should have access to things they want as long as its not hurting anyone else.
The rationalization for any change to the gas guzzler tax is a joke. This is market driven – if you note the non-Detroit brands, Toyota, Honda, and Nissan’s bread-and-butter cars, Camry, Accord, Altima (and Maxima), all got progressively larger over the last three generations of those vehicles. All of that was customer driven. All three companies minivans got progressively larger, and two of the three, Toyota and Nissan, spent in the low billions to get into the half ton pick-up truck market, and spun both mainstream and luxury SUV’s off those platforms.
This nonsense, including this editorial, is driven by a small group of people who favor small cars, as is their right, but don’t want to be on the road along side larger vehicles. Everything else is a red herring, whether some of them realize it or not.
Those of you living else where in the world, until you have accurate, up-to-date knowledge of what our daily lives are like.
Boo-hoo, as if there’s something “unique” about the transport challenges in the US.
Besides which, your “daily lives” are controlled from the Middle East (and/or Beijing) after having slowly handed your financial sovereignty over. Riding around in cars far larger than required keeps the US under greater control of the oil price for the entire population. Even the previous dimwit Administration had worked that out toward the end. The dimmer “but it’s my rights!!!” population will take (a lot) longer (apparently).
What I drive is none of your business. How you perceive it affects you is still none of your business. Get that point through your thick skull. Energy independence is better achieved through other methods. The automobile, indeed all of transportation, is not the largest use of energy in the U.S.A., not the biggest source of greenhouse gases, and far from the biggest waster, in terms if inefficiency, of energy in the U.S.A.
Boo-hoo, as if there’s something “unique” about the transport challenges in the US.
Baloney. We have longer distances to drive in the U.S. than almost any other Westernized country in the world. My wife’s most recent job was a minimum drive of thirty minutes to the west of our home, with monthly trips to her employers other office an hour away. My most recent employment was forty minutes in the opposite direction to the office, with daily drives over a sales territory that measured thirty miles by forty miles. There’s no moving to a new home closer to either employment location, and no public transportation at all.
“Boo-hoo, as if there’s something “unique” about the transport challenges in the US.”
Right, like parents in Europe haul their children and sports equipment or marching band instruments around nine months of every year. And Beijing and the Middle East did a nice job of controlling Western European, Canadian, and other Western countries, last year, so you know where you can stuff your sanctimony. Arrogant *****!
I’m a little confused by Len and SoccerMom’s attitudes. I expressed a different opinion from your’s. I did not in no way say that large vehicles should be outlawed or otherwise restricted. The editorial asked a question – I answered it. So did you. Your opinion is not any more valuable or correct than mine. Your opinion is also no less important or correct than mine either. You’ll go on to drive what you like and I will do the same. Len – you went on to point out that the current CR-V grew several inches and you are correct. It also gained 2-3 mpg despite the 400cc extra engine displacement. YAY for Honda. They might get repeat business from me if I buy new again (unlikely to buy new anything ever again).
I’ll take larger if I can retain or increase my family fleet MPG average b/c that is important to me. Heck if I could buy a new VW Eurovan (pretty large inside and out) with the Euro-spec turbo diesel that got 30 mpg then I would do so. I like large too when I have use for it and the driving experience isn’t like piloting the Titanic. I like big if I am not paying the mileage penalty. MPG is a pretty important part of vehicle choice for me. If you are satisfied with some number lower than me – I have no problem with that. I think you’ll make the right choices for your family and your budget. Free markets, free America and all that.
That said I DO think that we do need a higher American fleet average as possible. That is as technology and manufacturing standards allow designs that return more MPG and still deliver desirable vehicles – we should put these vehicles on the showroom floor. They need not be sized the same as a GEM electric neighborhood vehicle. They need not look like something from a sci-fi festival. Normal rides with new tech whenever applicable. The reason I think we need to be as efficient as possible is because going down the path we are going down in the USA right now will be unsustainable. We’re going to seriously be competing with the Indians, the Chinese and others for all the raw materials we consume everyday. The prices WILL go up. Any effort to fulfill our ever faster consumption habits in the USA with the raw materials found in the USA will simply deplete the raw materials we have available to us in the future. See the hostory of drilling for oil in America. There might be more to be had in protected areas of the USA but we’ll use that up too leaving us hugely vulnerable if we ever have to defend our borders. I advocate using the right tools for our needs. Big vehicles where we need them and compacts where they work well and EVs where/when they work well. I’ll pursue those priorities by spending my money to purchase them. If they are important enough to me I’ll even buy them new. I’m not saying your choices are in danger of being outlawed if I had my way. Like a Navy Admiral siad to a group of us sailors over a decade agao – lead by example. I live by the choices I think are important unlike Al Gore (aka the Sky is Falling, but I won’t change my ways). The manufacturers who seem to have the same priorities as me will get my business either directly or indirectly (parts and service on a used vehicle) just like you.
I seem to run into more and more folks like LenA and SoccerMom in various forums lately. Not sure why they are so excitable. I’m not advocating outlawing your lifestyle choices or forcing you agree with me. Contrary to what FoxNews is reporting – America is still the land of the free and the current political environment will not last forever. We can vote the current team out just like the last team was voted out.
I’m a little confused by Len and SoccerMom’s attitudes. I expressed a different opinion from your’s. I did not in no way say that large vehicles should be outlawed or otherwise restricted. The editorial asked a question – I answered it. So did you. Your opinion is not any more valuable or correct than mine. Your opinion is also no less important or correct than mine either. You’ll go on to drive what you like and I will do the same. Len – you went on to point out that the current CR-V grew several inches and you are correct. It also gained 2-3 mpg despite the 400cc extra engine displacement. YAY for Honda. They might get repeat business from me if I buy new again (unlikely to buy new anything ever again).
I’ll take larger if I can retain or increase my family fleet MPG average b/c that is important to me. Heck if I could buy a new VW Eurovan (pretty large inside and out) with the Euro-spec turbo diesel that got 30 mpg then I would do so. I like large too when I have use for it and the driving experience isn’t like piloting the Titanic. I like big if I am not paying the mileage penalty. MPG is a pretty important part of vehicle choice for me. If you are satisfied with some number lower than me – I have no problem with that. I think you’ll make the right choices for your family and your budget. Free markets, free America and all that.
That said I DO think that we do need a higher American fleet average as possible. That is as technology and manufacturing standards allow designs that return more MPG and still deliver desirable vehicles – we should put these vehicles on the showroom floor. They need not be sized the same as a GEM electric neighborhood vehicle. They need not look like something from a sci-fi festival. Normal rides with new tech whenever applicable. The manufacturers who seem to have the same priorities as me would get my business either directly or indirectly (parts and service on a used vehicle) just like you.
I seem to run into more and more folks like LenA and SoccerMom in various forums lately. Not sure why they are so excitable. I’m not advocating outlawing your lifestyle choices or forcing you agree with me. Contrary to what FoxNews is reporting – America is still the land of the free and the current political environment will not last forever. We can vote the current team out just like the last team was voted out.
If you read the last sentence of the editorial, it was “Tax the bigger cars and subsidize the smaller ones. And let nature have its course.” Totally unacceptable.
Then yesterday morning, we had an unspeakable tragedy in the Detroit area, involving a Toyota Camry, whose driver lost control (at low speeds) on slippery, now covered roads, and was T-Boned (broadsided) by a pick up truck. Three passengers, all girls ages 14 years old, died in this accident, and the mother of one of them is hospitalized. The side air bags went off, but did nothing to help the girls.
The srticle and pictures of the car are here (for the next 7 to 10 days): http://detnews.com/article/20100112/METRO02/1120360/Weather-blamed-in-Orion-Twp.-crash-that-killed-3-teens
I’ll keep my full size Mercury Montego, thank you very much, with it’s Volvo derived cross beam that provides additional protection in a side impact. Not only do I not want to pay any penalty for driving a large car, this accident reinforces what I said about having to subsidize small car drivers. With the number of large vehicles, including contractors, municipalities, and delivery vehicles out there, there’s no way I’m risking my safety in a small car, especially those made by non Detroit car makers.
Len_A, the 3 teen girls being killed (because the driver lost control) has little to do with big car vs small (you likely would have been killed in your Montego as well) and much more to do with telling drivers not to drive in poor weather and making people buy winter tires.
You can’t get around physics, and I’ll take my chances in my Montego for three reasons: the AWD (which has some mileage penalty), the larger mass, and the safety design. That said, I think snow tires would be a great idea as well.
As the Troopers say in the newspaper after a fatality like this: “seatbelts would have likely made a difference.”
If not for the passenger side occupants, then for the driver side rear passenger.
Actually the twins in the back seat were unbelted, the driver’s daughter was in the front passenger seat and was belted, and she died at the scene, according to the local TV station news. The pickup truck driver was not injured.
As far as not driving in poor weather,as davey49 mentioned above, it was one of those winter days that started out with light flurries and had weather conditions deteriorate five minutes down the road and then clear up again. When we woke up yesterday morning, there were very few weather related school closings.
My x fatherinlaw drove lincolns, and had a mark V like the one shown, only it was dove grey. It would easily get 14 mpg on the highway. I had a 77 town car in the early 90’s with the 460 engine, and it also averaged 14 on the highway.
If a person installed a more efficient intake, like an edelbrock dual plane, with a nice aftermarket carb, like a holley or edelbrock 650, open element air cleaner and a more efficient exhaust system you could get another 3 or so more mpg out of one.
Re. revverting to ancient technology and powertrain architecture: I don’t believe the +3mpg claim to be true, especially if all things have to remain equal (in which case, even if old tech could rcover contemporary regs, there would be a real fuel-economy loss.)
When I hear these kinds of arguments, I half-expect to hear somebody advocating going back to the Model-T lubrication system, where the oil dribbled out on the ground, just to promote the idea of reducing service costs by eliminating the oil filter and recycling charge.
I got an extra 1-2 mpg from my CR-V since new by switching to synthetic oil and a K&N drop in filter. There – you’re up to 16 mpg! ;) I drove one of those cars up a mtn where I grew up. What a car! Don’t want one at all but glad I had the experience. I could just about see the gas gauge move towards E. Would be an excellent interstate car if a person could keep it fueled. Not so good anywhere else by my measure (I like sporty cars with good brakes and suspension).
I have a friend who likes old buses. He has a 40ft Clipper with a late model Dodge Cummins turbo diesel pickup truck engine (late 90s).
He says on the highway he can get 14 mpg. Note the bus is loaded down with a RV conversion interior. ;)
The story is true, but I’m just jerking your chain Moparman.GRIN! Have a good one.
I can’t believe this argument is still going on. I, for one, will always prefer to drive the largest vehicle I can afford to drive. If I were in the market right now, for a new vehicle, the 2011 Ford Explorer I test drove this week would fit my bill. That said, I also really like the current 2012 Ford Focus, and I always hated small cars. Wouldn’t mind one for a commuter car, but no way could I do my outside sales rep job with one. Close, but still a bit too small.
The new Explorer is mighty nice. Geez, never thought I’d say that about an Explorer. ;) I wouldn’t mind having one. Not even my style (size, MPG) but nice…
I was really impressed with the Explorer. I’ve talked to a couple of people who have one, and the gas mileage, for such a big vehicle, with eh V-6, is also impressive. As good as my older, and less powerful Mercury Montego. I’m wondering, in the front wheel drive models, how well the mileage will be with eh EcoBoost 4 cylinder.