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

[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 . . .