[Big Dave]

What is an SUV but a station wagon on a pickup truck chassis?

If you can afford only one vehicle, it has to accomplish as many missions as possible. So you see people commuting in SUVs.

What is needed is a low-cost (relatively) high speed (50-70 MPH) commuter car for the guy who makes a long commute on the super slab every day. Diesel engine, manual transmission, tandem (1+1) seating (if not a single seater. Good aero. But this is a single purpose vehicle and you cannot expect people to pay $25,000 for it. Maybe $10,000. it has to be overpowered enough to maneuver easily in normal traffic. Something that accelerates like a Mercedes 240D ain't gonna cut it. It needs a heater/defroster and an air conditioner. You don't want to have an excuse for not using it. Carbon fiber is too expensive.

There are a lot of people these days that commute 45-50 miles from one 'burb to another. Not so much heavily urban but more two-lane state roads. If this guy is driving a 15 MPG SUV that is a lot of fuel a year.

A pure city car isn't worth the effort. If you only drive a couple miles in city traffic, you couldn't justify much extra cost of ownership if you fuel cost dropped by 90% because it wasn't that much in the first place.

But the guy burning 6 gal/day has some scope for improvement. by cutting his cost by 66% (to 2 gal/day with an honest 45 MPG vehicle) you have saved him 4 gal/day x 200 days/yr x $4/gal = $3,200/yr. If the commuter special only cost $10 grand he pays for it in three years and everything is gravy after that. but if it costs him $30 grand and doesn't do anything else it takes him almost ten years to pay it off - driving it about $170,000 miles.

Can you build a $10,000 economy car and make a profit doing it?