Why you can't buy a high mpg car....

[rmay635703]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

The problem is not the unions per se, but the fact that a lot of union leaders maintain & foster an adversarial relationship with employers.

Its not even that, they do STUPID things at the wrong time for the wrong reasons. Unions quit working correctly when the government and companies stepped into their regulation systems nearly 4 decades ago and GREATLY need reform to eliminate the corruption and greed in the upper managment portion of the union.

Looking at my other posts you would think I am a union fanboy while I am not, its just the alternative is going back to what my great grandfather faced when he was put up to by executed for being in a union movement, he got away from the pinkertons and everything wrapped up, but its amazing that we forget the extreme sacrifices that were needed back in the "old" union days when there were literally armed wars taking place over this issue.

[niky]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

The Corvette is quite a bit lower, though: ~49 inches vs 55.4 for the Mini. It certainly is a fairly small car: perhaps not as small as the Mini, but much smaller than say a Chevy Suburban.

Suburban: 222.4 x 76.8 inches
Corvette: 174.6 x 49.1
Mini: 146.6 x 55.4

And unlike the Mini, the Corvette is a two-seater. But pick another car if you like, say the Porsche 911 series, or the Miata.

Large, inexpensive... the Fusion at $20k is not large enough?

The Corvette is not a small car. The Corvette is a six-foot wide grand tourer with a motor big enough to power a small city... with the stock alternator and 12v socket. Calling it a small car is like calling a Bentley Continental a subcompact. You can manipulate the numbers to agree with you, but at the end of the day, they're not small cars. They're big toys.

Why are we talking about boutique sports cars in a thread about high mpg cars, again? About the only car in this discussion that even comes close to meeting the subject of the thread is the Miata... and that's an excellent example of "niche"... in that every car that's competed in the Miata's small but relatively profitable niche over the past few years (MR-S, Solstice/Sky) has died out, leaving the Miata to soldier alone. The Toyota 86 may make a good go of it, these still aren't the cars we're looking for.

The MINI, again, is the closest, but it sells more on coolness than practicality. And you can't rely on that to sell mass transport, because the moment a car becomes a useful appliance rather than just a toy (ergo: Fit, Mazda2, Fiesta), no amount of fancy styling will convince people it's as cool as a MINI. As MINI found out itself with the Clubman.

Here's an informative infographic:


Having driven the entire MINI line-up... I can say that the Clubman is the one MINI that actually makes sense from a practical point of view. The Cooper is tiny. The back seat is pathetic and cargo space is small compared to many old school subcompacts and non-existent compared to the compacts it's priced against. The Clubman gives you actual rear legroom, actual trunk space, and the same fuel economy. And it just happens to drive as well as the MINI... even better, in my opinion... an opinion that, surprisingly, is shared by the local brand manager. And it's selling worse than ever.

The Countryman, on the other hand, has big space compared to other MINIs, but fuel economy isn't all that great (tall car, bluff front end, small motor) given the hardware, ground clearance and off-roadability aren't that great, despite the looks, and you can certainly buy much more practical cars for the price. It doesn't drive anywhere near as well as a MINI, and the chassis rigidity of this Austrian-made car is disappointing, especially in white.... which just happened to be the color I drove.

But the Countryman maintains the spirit that the Clubman did not: To wit: "I don't care if it's impractical, it's darn cute." Which makes it a runaway success.

Works for niche cars... won't work for everyone else. To try and market a practical, economical mass market car relying on the irrational impulses and desires of the buyers would be like trying to emulate the Cadillac Escalade's success with the Lincoln Navigator. Or to use TV and movie placements to make your products "hip". Doesn't matter how many Transformers movies it's been in... the Chevrolet Spark (more interior volume than a MINI hardtop, much better mpg) just doesn't reach the level of "hipness" that MINI does just by being "MINI".

And right now, MINI sales are stagnating. Without the Countryman, their market share would be on the decline. And the Countryman just happens to be the biggest MINI that they've ever made. The unrelenting upward march of progress? Unfortunately.

[Grant-53]

Each car design is a blend of goals and compromises. The lead time in designing, developing, testing, certifying, and marketing a car can be several years. Consumer demand can fluctuate from month to month. Amortizing tooling and recouping R&D costs can take years. A 20% margin on a $40,000 car is more profit than 15% on two $20,000 cars. A great deal of money goes into advertising to create product image. SUVs are touted as being safer and more rugged than a more economical sedan even though crash tests and safety data prove the sedan is safer. An SUV may well be cheaper to produce because it uses older tooling and regulations are not as demanding. The Corolla and the Camry are best sellers because the value, reliability, and quality have remained excellent for decades. Sadly the attitude in Detroit has been if we advertise enough, people will buy what we produce; good, bad, or indifferent. The public perception currently is that high mileage (50+ mpg) vehicles are too light to be safe and too small to ride comfortably. The educated consumers, the opinion leaders, are the ones that will first purchase the models that not only are efficient but provide the best value for the money.

[Frank Lee]

I think it's quite simple- in the U.S. a consistent demand for efficient cars isn't there. Motorists may complain around the water cooler or for news sound bites when gas prices go up, but for the most part that's as far as the action on the consumers' part goes and they continue to rack up the miles in the biggest thing they can get their hands on.

Most don't use rational criteria for choosing vehicles; it's more about status and perceived image than anything. If there was any rationality in vehicle choosing I wouldn't see 75%+ of the local traffic mix using 5000 lb V8 4x4s for transporting what is usually a solo 200lb (or maybe 300 lb) occupant.

Another factor may be that most people really only have a vague notion of what their true expenditures are, thus the outrageous and totally disproportionate costs for personal transportation are never really given any consideration, other than can the car payments and credit card gas purchase payments be made at the end of the month?

During an economic downturn or energy price rise there is a short-lived clamoring for economical vehicles, but as soon as the majority feel like they have two nickels to rub together again they bail out on the "austerity" of not being flagrantly wasteful. I guess it is a treat to be wasteful?

There is a market segment that makes efficiency and economy a priority, but it's quite small compared to the "norm". The niches are tougher for manufacturers to make a business case to cater to; to sweeten that pot the profit/unit has to be proportionally higher just to be average... OR sometimes the mfgs are compelled to make such vehicles to meet government mandate (I think the Metro falls into that category; GM needed to meet CAFE).

Past successes like the Model T, classic Mini, and the classic VW Bug don't fit neatly into my paradigm; they're economical and cheap yet achieved cult status anyway. Maybe they succeeded because they were just too much an awesome blend of style and value to be overlooked. Or maybe the times were different then and we are further along into the Idiocracy cycle now...

[AeroModder]

Originally Posted by UltArc

INSERT AFTER READING LINK: Conspiracy theory. I've never seen a federal road.

Dunno if this has been pointed out, but interstates are federally funded.

I can prove that guy wrong at 4:28 with two words: Nissan Leaf. Also, there are tax credits for hybrid and electric cars, so his points on super-efficient cars not being sold here because of lost gas tax revenue doesn't hold. It's because of strict tailpipe emissions standards.

[euromodder]

Originally Posted by niky

The MINI, again, is the closest, but it sells more on coolness than practicality.
The Cooper is tiny. The back seat is pathetic and cargo space is small compared to many old school subcompacts and non-existent compared to the compacts it's priced against.

Then comes the question : how often are those back seats actually used ?
Flip them down, and cargo space is a fair bit bigger.
When transporting kids, they usually love the Mini despite the back seats ...

For a lot of people, something the size of the Mini or a Fiesta is big enough for the largest part of their everyday use.
For the few % of time / miles that it isn't big enough : put a hitch on it, and get a trailer. Far more efficient than driving a vehicle that's sized for what is an a-typical use.

We seem to have forgotten that this is the size of car that many of our (grand)parents used for well, just about everything.
Not everyone drove a battleship back in the days ...

[niky]

Originally Posted by euromodder

Then comes the question : how often are those back seats actually used ?
Flip them down, and cargo space is a fair bit bigger.
When transporting kids, they usually love the Mini despite the back seats ...

For a lot of people, something the size of the Mini or a Fiesta is big enough for the largest part of their everyday use.
For the few % of time / miles that it isn't big enough : put a hitch on it, and get a trailer. Far more efficient than driving a vehicle that's sized for what is an a-typical use.

We seem to have forgotten that this is the size of car that many of our (grand)parents used for well, just about everything.
Not everyone drove a battleship back in the days ...

My real beef with it is you can get cars with the same interior volume (or bigger) that not only cost less, but also weigh less and have smaller engine choices (Fiesta goes down to 1.2... Picanto/Spark/i10 start at 1.0 and have the same interior space), which does good things for economy. A MINI is porky for something so small. A Spark with more interior space weighs over 200 pounds less. My last micro-car test unit, with similar interior volume, weighs nearly six hundred pounds less.

This is not to say that the MINI is not a nice car. I've always loved driving them, and hey... if I could, I would. But as a business case for selling small, high MPG cars in the US at a decent price, the MINI is not a good example, simply because it owes its success more to intangibles than anything else.

[jtbo]

Here is very small car industry, just one small factory, that has made Porsches and Saabs, it makes today https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisker_Karma

It should be rather fuel efficient, is there anything like that made or sold in US?

Also these have been made, but currently are not being made as Think company did go under, but plans are to continue making those cars again I did read.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_Global

Problem is that such cars are not selling too well, they are bit too expensive, Volt was also mentioned to be poor selling car together with Leaf.

So those can't be sold even in here, even that mpg would be really great in electric car.

Also there is made Marussia B2 supercar, but it is not getting very good MPG.

Chevy might make Corvette to be a hybrid in a future, so maybe that is route mpg will increase in US made cars in future as technology matures they probably start put it into normal sedans too, then car would have that torque which I believe is why big engine is wanted.

[mcrews]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

As for volume, Detroit seems happy enough to build other fairly low-volume models, such as as the Corvette.

you have a tough time w/ business comcepts.
The corvette is not a new model.
it has an amazing loyalty base.
It's VERY expensive for what it does.
Just compare it to a Nissian GTR at almost the same price.
It has absolutely nothing to do with this thread.

And please.....name alll the other models.

[mcrews]

Originally Posted by euromodder

Then comes the question : how often are those back seats actually used ?
Flip them down, and cargo space is a fair bit bigger.
When transporting kids, they usually love the Mini despite the back seats ...

For a lot of people, something the size of the Mini or a Fiesta is big enough for the largest part of their everyday use.
For the few % of time / miles that it isn't big enough : put a hitch on it, and get a trailer. Far more efficient than driving a vehicle that's sized for what is an a-typical use.

We seem to have forgotten that this is the size of car that many of our (grand)parents used for well, just about everything.
Not everyone drove a battleship back in the days ...

Really.
The thread is about us car production.
In the us my grandparents drove very big cars.
The size of european cars was determined by:
1. the size of the roads
2. the need to travel distances.
The size of cars in us was determined by ....surprise, the same thing.