what happened to the geo metro?/big car & big oil conspiracy?

[joesgot4]

first part --why did they quit making the 3 cylinder geo metro when it got between 45-50mpgs? second part--IS THERE A BIG OIL/BIG CAR CONSPIRACY that keeps them working together to keep mpgs down?

[Johnny Mullet]

Nobody wanted the Metro when it came out and sales were poor. Nobody wanted a fuel economy car when fuel was under $1.00 per gallon at that time.

Now everybody wants one.

Some people say the new Aveo is the new Metro, but I disagree. I also heard that with all the new safety requirements needed for cars today, a 3 cylinder car would be to heavy and under-powered.

[joesgot4]

your car is getting that kind of mpgs and thats all you've done to it! MANS THATS AWESOME!

[Johnny Mullet]

It really all comes down to my driving style. The car would still get about 48MPG if I drove like I was not concerned with fuel economy, but that extra 8-10 MPG really saves money in the long run!

[Duffman]

The big 3 make no money on small cars. Do you actually think there is 2x the value of steel in the bigger cars?

[SVOboy]

Suzuki still makes the car for the Japan/European market, but no one wanted it in the US. *shrug*

[Cd]

I think it was also marketing. It was never marketed as a 'hip' or 'cool' car like the Mini or smart cars are.
The Mini has the prestige of being sold at BMW dealerships and the original smart had a Mercedes engine.

Is there a conspiracy ?
No. Not at all.
( Otherwise Bush would have stopped it long ago. )

[ebacherville]

small fuel efficient cars are all the rage now.. the industry is so slow to change to the market, but there trying.. cant wait to se what the next 2 years brings even though its a day late and a dollar short.

[fshagan]

I've read that the shortest "time to market" for a new car, even using an existing platform, is about 3 years. Working in an unrelated manufacturing field with a much smaller product, I think that's actually pretty fast. It took us three years to bring a product to market that was significantly less involved than a modern vehicle.

The only "conspiracy" the car manufacturer's have is to make money. They don't give a rat's patootie about the oil companies; they only care about making money for themselves. If GM thought it could have made money with the EV1, we'd see them all over the place. When I bought my Prius in 2006, people were laughing at me, and big SUVs were trying to run me off the road (until I added a NRA sticker to the back window). Now none of them are laughing at me.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by joesgot4

second part--IS THERE A BIG OIL/BIG CAR CONSPIRACY that keeps them working together to keep mpgs down?

Nope. I don't think big oil is involved in any conspiracy, and is generally much less to blame for this than most people (especially those whose politics tilt leftward) would like to think.

It's mostly Detroit's fault, though to call their actions a conspiracy implies some degree of intelligent planning, and their actions have been characterized by short-sighted "how can we make a few bucks more today, and screw tomorrow" thinking. They latched on to the "SUVs are trucks" loophole and got stuck in the "all Americans want big cars" meme, ignoring the obvious fact that a lot of Americans were buying small imports. Sure, they might make $10K profit on an SUV, and only a few hundred on a small car, but a few hundred profit is still profit. They let that market get away from them, and the Japanese & others did quite well off it.