Why no inexpencive fuel efficient cars.
I think it comes down to this basic reasoning. Neither big oil or big auto would make any decent profit off these. So, little to no profit = little to no incentive to waste time and money redesigning, retooling, and producing.
Gas guzzling full size trucks and SUVs are big money makers for oil and manufactures and money takers for consumers. With new fuel standards also applying to trucks, that just means the price of gas will rise as the gas economy goes up for these vehicles. To keep profit margined high, fuel companies are happy to sell less gas but at much higher per gallon costs. There is talk at Toyota the new Tacoma May eventually have a hybrid version…for $35 k plus. Wow, what a savings that will be ! So for that reason alone, I get the desire for tiny pick ups. To be blunt, I haven’t missed a pick up one bit with two SUVs and a ultility trailer.
" Neither big oil or big auto would make any decent profit off these."
Ignoring ‘big oil’ (do you think the carmakers would do something that hurt them but made ‘big oil’ happy? No chance!), it’s very true that there is little/no money to be made in cheap cars. I’ve read that Ford lost quite a bit on every Focus, but made it up on the big cars/trucks/SUVs. Why did they do that? To meet CAFE requirements.
No company will do something that loses money (no profit) just to be nice. Not in a major way, at least.
Here’s another angle to the ‘‘why no inexpensive vehicles’’ conundrum.
And it has to do largely with the current market buyers/useres product mentality of ''USE IT TILL IT BREAKS.
A cheap plain vehicle would be feasable and sellable -IF-
-IF-
Joe user would actually be willing to participate in the product’s upkeep , maintainence, and care !
This is NOT only a car issue.
Do you want to know how many products are brought to me for repair ( vacuums, hair driers, rc cars, clippers, weed eaters, fans, heaters, etc ) that simply need the overdue t.l.c. like…CLEANING ? It may be broken now but it wouldn’t have been …if only…
A plain and simple car or truck will only be possible if they leave off all the babysitting, do-it-for-you devices and attributes and require the user to actually DO something …like…READ the owner’s manual and DO the things it says.
The buying public fully expects every product to be warranteed forever and never need service.
WE ALL ARE PAYING FOR THIS in every product we buy. We are paying , up front, for the warranty and the engineering needed to get a product to that level of service.
Remember GREASING the ball joints ? - Tune ups with points, condensr , plugs, timing ? - Lifting the little spring loaded flap and putting OIL in the bearings of your swamp cooler ? - Packing the bearings ? - Adjusting the belts ? - Replacing the starter brushes ?
The most obvious examples of paying for the warranty ( the part remains the same ) is batteries and used engines.
Batteries on the shelf at the parts store all come out of the same factory . Look at the labels of the differently priced batteries. The expensive ones have…a longer warranty !
When I call to order a used engine, transmission, or axle assembly it’s blantently obvious and not even a hidden agenda ; " do you want the basic six month parts only for X-$ or the one year parts and labor for X-$ ?’'
Same parts, different warranty.
Oh yeah, cunsumer electronics too. ‘’ would you like to add the extended warranty for only X-$ ?’’
I think volatility in oil prices is good for car sales. When standards are relaxed and prices low, larger less efficient vehicles will sell. A sudden jump and everyone is paying $100 a tank full on these guzzlers and it’s trade in time. There is little reason for Auto companies not to like the change in scenery. It promotes more car sales,
OK, Ken, I was with you until I got to “swamp cooler”…?
Yah, around home there’s things that people no longer want to participate in either. like set-it-and-forget-it air conditioning. But out here in the single digit humidity south west, the ol’ cheapo swamp cooler can be just as good …with a little hands-on participation.
SMB, the mini trucks and variants aren’t sold in the USA. Did someone go to the trouble of making a couple street legal? That’s hard to believe. There are Japanese cab-over trucks in the USA, but Isuzu and Mitsubishi trucks are much larger that the Hijet. I agree that these minitrucks can be useful in East Asia. Farmers with small plots of land don’t need a big truck to service the farm.
A good many of these little guys wont go over 25 mph(not quite fast enough for US highways) but in the proper setting they would shine,I know what a swamp cooler is,but not terribly good in most of the southeast and if I know were the bearings are and can get to them,Ill lube em.I suppose when it gets hot enough the swamp coolers will even function around here,the nearest resort uses them to help cool the laundry building off.
One thing that bugs is that a full size 1500 Ram Hemi V8 can get better mileage then my V6 Dakota,just looking at my Dakota its obvious it was engineered to be second rate(it doesnt even have pebble guard on the lower sheet metal panels and doesnt even have an electric fan to help it achieve better fuel economy,they do not want to build smaller more effiecient vehicles) oh well,its easy to see why some manus sell more vehicles then others-Kevin
Small trucks were popular with teens when I was in high school (graduated 1980). But that was low price, decent Japanese reliability, and that we had a lot of surfers. Many of the truck owners didn’t surf, but they followed the taste makers.
Later, the main complaint was that the owners were always getting stuff stolen. A shell doesn’t offer much security. For those running businesses and carrying expensive tools that was too risky when a van was so much more secure. We have a neighbor in the plumbing business who has lost a lot of tools from his trucks. He has switched to vans as much as he can, though he still has an F350 with a pipe rack for when he needs it. It must be frustrating getting good tools stolen, but in a dense city he sometimes has to park it on the street. Kids like I went to HS with would probably be driving a small SUV now. The non-surfers wanted old Mustangs. Maybe they still do.
@MarkM
"Small trucks were popular with teens when I was in high school (graduated 1980). But that was low price, decent Japanese reliability, and that we had a lot of surfers."
Reminds me of my daughter’s good friend and best man at her wedding, telling me about their escapades with my “little” Mazda B2000 she used to drive around when in highs school.
One comment in particular made me role my eyes in a “glad I didn’t know at the time” remark.
He said: “hey Mr. ____, bet you never knew that little truck was a 9 passenger vehicle.” Gulp.
@"Joes Garage"
Not sure if its already been mentioned, but Mitsubishi Mirage.
Brand new for only 13k, with 37/44 mpg.
Due to a shortage of rides home from the waterpark we turned a 1987 (or therabouts) Nissan King Cab into a 8-9 passenger vehicle, four in the cab and the rest with seatbelts that ran along the sides of the bed. Not the best idea I’ll admit. When we’d visit my grandpa in Hawaii and drive around in his Mazda P/u we’d see other trucks with 6 more more big samoan guys in the bed of the truck not including who was in the cab.
We arrived in port on a Hawaiian cruise to find that the rental car company had sent a 7 passenger Ford Aerostar as the shuttle (this was 1990) which was turned into a 11 passenger vehicle for the ride to the lot.
We didn’t worry much about these things when I was a kid. If you had a station wagon you could carry four more kids in the back even if you didn’t have the fold-out seat. Kids would fight to ride back there. You could carry eight or nine kids total that way. Seat belts? My parents wore them in the front seat, but never tried very hard to get the kids to buckle up in the back seat. When we were older and had cars with convenient lap/shoulder belts that were comfortable to wear is when we started using them. Now I would feel weird being in a car without my belts fastened.
As long as we’re telling “when I was a kid” stories, I can remember the car seat device my parents used when I was a toddler. They had this white thing that was padded and it had a funky shape. It fit over my legs and had a flat surface in front of me. The lap belt would fasten across it. It was very primitive, but it did the job.
Once we graduated from that device, my parents encouraged us to wear our lap belts, but it wasn’t mandatory. In fact, when I was about five years old, I can remember falling out of the car. I was riding shotgun, wearing no seat belt, and leaning on the passenger door. As my mother made a left turn, my door came open and as I fell out, I grabbed the door, but my knees hit the ground and dragged a short distance before my mother realized what had happened and stopped. After that, I always either locked the door or rode with my seat belt. However, I still rode without a seat belt in the back of my parents’ station wagons and the Ford Econoline van they bought around 1980.
Over the years, my parents bought station wagons, always used, and they only kept them two or three years before they would die and be hauled off. However, before they were hauled off to the scrap yard, my father would remove the rear seats and put them in the garage. When my parents bought the Ford van (the first vehicle they bought new), my father would put those old station wagon bench seats in the back of the van. They weren’t even bolted in place. Fortunately, my father was a very conscientious driver. In his entire driving history, he was never in an accident.
inexpensive fuel efficient vehicle ;
1969 VW beetle.
The challenge was…and all the neihborhood kids knew this…was to see how many kids, plus my baritone horn, could be crammed in there for the ride to mid school.
Waaaaay back when.
Back when ; my parents most serious attempt at a second car ( first was a scooter for dad, then a Corvair ) and the VW lasted till we moved to NM in 1972. Dad, my brother and I put a J.C.Whitney replacement rag top on it and it did everything we ever demanded of it , Ohio winters included.
Whitey, I can so easily picture an accident with kids and station wagon seats flying every which way in the back of a van. That’s the way people were back then. In the front seat my folks insisted on lap belts so we didn’t fly through the windshield. That glass was scary. In back we never wore belts as a kid. We did keep the locks locked, at my mother’s insistence, so we wouldn’t do as you did and fall out. But we climbed all over the place back there playing with our toys. The other rule was that we must not distract the driver, so no playing near his/her headrest, and we had to keep the noise down. The rear seat belts wete down in the seats somewhere, not seen since the car was new.