Informal survey

[jhetley]

I was contemplating the general castigation current on the auto industry, bemoaning "Detroit's" pig-headed management decision to concentrate on pickup truck and SUV production and letting Japan steal the small car market.  And then, as I walked to fetch the newspaper and back, I counted passing vehicles.

Over half the traffic on State Street consisted of light trucks and SUVs.  Usual carrying one person, the driver, and with no visible cargo.  Folks, "Detroit" was producing those dinosaurs because that was what the American Driver wanted to buy . . .

I'm old enough to remember small cars like the Nash Metropolitan, the Henry J, the Ford Falcon.  "Detroit" has tried to produce small, fuel-efficient cars through the decades.  They've flopped in the market.  Instead, we bought highway battleships like my family's 1957 Oldsmobile, with a big V-8 engine and automatic transmission. 

Or a Ford Expedition.  What percentage of SUVs ever leave the pavement, except in an accident?

Comments

[wcg.livejournal.com]

I have no idea what that number would be Jim, but note this tidbit: Toyota currently has as much market share as all of GM in the American automotive market. Now sure, some of that is Toyota Highlanders, but much more of it is Corollas and Camrys.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Toyota made a fair number of those pickup trucks in my survey. Also "4Runners" and "Land Cruisers" and a couple of other Big Ass Machines that they developed especially for the US market but escape my memory at the moment.

Hey, I drive more car than I need -- the new Subaru packs a lot of empty cubic footage, for mostly one person. I've needed the full capacity twice since we bought it last spring . . .

And I won't need the AWD and ABS for another two weeks, at least.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

My Saturn seats five. In all the years I've owned it I've only had five people shoehorned into it once. Most of the time it's just me and the gear I haul around. Even so, I manage to get 36 mpg out of the beast. So I certainly don't begrudge you the Subaru. I had hopes of getting a Venture 1, but Venture Vehicles seems to be running afoul of the myriad problems associated with bringing a new vehicle to market in the US.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

I was mainly putting out the "We have met the enemy and they is us" post.

Up until this summer, the Prius and other hybrids were niche cars selling to people who cared more about the environment than about cost, like one of Wife's coworkers at the Nature Center. Even with orders in hand, Toyota hasn't been able to ramp up production to meet demand. And now people are post-market modifying them for plug-in use, because the factory model isn't efficient enough . . .

I get over 30 mpg on highway driving. And drive 3000-4000 miles per year. Boosting that mileage to 60 or even 100 mpg would save how many gallons of gas? For how much additional first cost?

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

A Venture or something comparable would be very cool. Almost the ideal commuter.

[pernishus.livejournal.com]

As an inveterate pedestrian...

...come to think of it, that's all I really have to say to car-owners...

[grin]

My total non-air transportation costs for 2007 were $720.00 -- deductible from my federal Canadian income tax..

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Are you sure that isn't "invertebrate"?

And you're the guy with electric heat . . .

[pernishus.livejournal.com]

Well, now -- I have to spend all those amazing transportation savings on something, don't I?...

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Thus far this year, I've put damn near as many miles on my bicycle as on my car. Subtract two runs to Younger Son's college, and the bike comes out ahead.

[pernishus.livejournal.com]

Oh, dear -- this seems to be my day for pissing off dear friends... I'm sorry, Jim -- I didn't mean to imply you were anything other than a good steward of the resources entrusted to you. But anyone who knows you and knows your work knows that...

It must be the snow -- a good eighth of an inch has stuck since I collapsed in bed early this afternoon -- my brain must be trying to fly south for the winter...

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Whatever gave you the sense I was pissed off? No, more amused that we own two cars for as little use as we give them.

Of course, old inveterate pedestrian, you *are* the guy who lured me Across the Water so that you could use my old Subaru to move stuff from apartment to condo . . .

[suzilem.livejournal.com]

{{{{{John}}}}}

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's not that Detroit didn't build small cars, but they did seem to have a lousy time building small cars that people liked.

I do wonder if part of it's because of their base of operations. Japan needs small, fuel efficient cars (as does Europe). Does this mean Toyota and Honda are used to thinking of how to make their baseline cars (i.e., small ones) better? Whereas Detroit was used to making big, fun behemoths?

(An interesting side note: I do know that Detroit had, at one point, begged for a gas tax if the CAFE standards were rising. They often sell their fuel efficient cars at a slim margin - sometimes at a loss - to make the CAFE standards. They'd like to see $4-5 a gallon gas if they have to start selling cars with 40-50mpg.)

Oh, yeah, another sad story... one of the Big Three has a car that gets 50mpg (diesel, but still). They just can't easily get it over here because their diesel engine plant is too far away. And, of course, they're having a hard time justifying building a new one if gas prices might drop (as, in fact, they have).

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

A number of diesels can't be sold in Maine. One example, a VW diesel boasted 50 mpg plus, but the particulate pollution didn't meet specs.

The corporate location matters, for sure. A lot of areas in Japan or Europe, you drive as far as my farthest county line (over a hundred miles), you end up crossing three national borders or swimming . . .

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

What percentage of SUVs ever leave the pavement, except in an accident?

This is one of those cross-atlantic things:

Many SUVs can be found parked on pavements, obstructing foot traffic. One hopes that *all* SUVs will leave the pavement.


I thought Opel/Vauxhall was part of GM? They make a pretty nifty small car.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes, pavements. "Two countries divided by a common language."

GM, Chrysler, and Ford have all marketed small fuel-efficient cars, often manufactured in Europe or Japan by joint ventures. None has done as well here as Toyota, Honda, or Nissan. Brand expectations.

We drive Subarus because nobody else, until recently, has marketed a *small* all-wheel-drive. Those Maine winters . . .

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

Detroit didn't (and still doesn't) market its smaller vehicles effectively. Even now, if we have the TV on, at least 60% of the commercials are for gas-hog SUVs and monster pickups; I rarely see one for a smaller fuel-efficient vehicle, and when I do, it's probably a Toyota or Honda. Also, the last few times that I was shopping for a car at a dealership, the salesdroids were pushing REALLY HARD to get me to look at an SUV, even after I said that wasn't what I wanted.

Another piece of the equation: "trucks" (a category which includes SUVs, and even my Montana minivan) get a lot of regulatory breaks vs. passenger cars, which makes them cheaper to manufacture, hence more profitable. (Source: Russ, who spent nearly 20 years in the industry.) Nobody was ever willing to level the playing field by separating working trucks from luxury trucks and making the latter subject to passenger-car regulations.

It's not entirely fair to blame the consumer when the consumer was having SUVs and monster pickups pushed down their throats at every turn.

(edited to fix typo)

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Marketing, well, marketing . . .

Like having multiple brand lines of the same vehicle. Plymouth Valiant, Dodge Dart. Ford Falcon, Mercury Comet. Those are old model names, but the practice lived on up to Chrysler's dropping the Plymouth brand name entirely.

I think you are atypical in resisting the truck and SUV craze. Witness my morning mini-survey.

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

Which was exactly my point. If the barrage of SUV/truck advertising didn't work, the auto companies wouldn't do it. To a major extent, they created the market that demanded those vehicles, and they did so because the profit margins on those vehicles were higher. To then turn around and say "Detroit made those cars because that was what the American public wanted," is putting the cart before the horse. Detroit knew what they wanted to sell, so they put their marketing muscle behind it.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Offer most American buyers the choice between a big car and a small car, other things being equal, and they'll take the big car.

$4.00/gallon gasoline broke the "other things being equal" part, and now that price has dropped enough to screw up economic calculations all across the board. One reason why more efficient cars have been popular elsewhere is that European and Japanese drivers laughed at our screams on $4.00/gallon. They've been paying more for years.

If OPEC had wanted to screw alternative energy and fuel efficiency, they couldn't have chosen a better move.

[suzilem.livejournal.com]

I drive a small SUV (Ford Escape) for the sole reason that the seat is the precise height to make it easy for me to get in and out of the vehicle and the cargo area in the back is low enough that it isn't difficult the get my walker in and out.

Before the last five years or so, I had always driven smaller cars like the Ford Escort.

My gas mileage isn't too bad for that class of vehicle (25 city, between 30-35 highway). My only regret is that when I bought Hamish 2.5 years ago, I couldn't afford to get the hybrid version.