Soaring gas prices have turned the steady migration by Americans to smaller cars into a stampede.
In what industry analysts are calling a first, about one in five vehicles sold in the United States was a compact or subcompact car during April, based on monthly sales data released Thursday. Almost a decade ago, when sport utility vehicles were at their peak of popularity, only one in every eight vehicles sold was a small car.
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What? Don't people need a 6,000 - 9,000 lb vehicle to get to work in?
Wow, I didn't even know if that was a viable option - I thought the reason Americans bought ridiculously huge vehicles was because they were the ones they fit into best. Why else would anyone buy such a dinosaur? We're in the process of converting our little suzuki into an electric car (you can buy a kit for about $6000 to convert your vehicle). For those who want to compare hybrids - we have a buyer's guide available from the Union of Concerned Scientists: http://go.ucsusa.org/hybridcenter/buyersguide.cfm
Every "green" thing all of these Americans are making right now actually do nothing in the grand scheme of things. Consider yourself 1/10th of a carbon credit and everything you do to help, China and India do 10 things in the opposite direction.
Which is all the more reason not to act on anything.
Depends on where you learned your logic, of course.
So here us my logic: I have a brand new energy efficient fridge which pays for itself in five years (return on investment >20%/year - I got a really good deal and had a really crappy fridge!). I have a brand new fuel efficient car which pays for itself in probably the next eight to ten years (ROI 8% and rising towards 10-12% fast). I am in the midst of buying brand new energy efficient windows which will pay for themselves in five to six years (I got huge windows with a nice view).
Of course, because of all my expenses I can't go out and buy cheap Chinese crap at Wal-Mart. Well, actually, I could, because I don't have ANY debt on any of my credit cards. Oh, well, I guess wherever I learned MY logic, they taught me something that actually works.
My wife and I bought a new car that gets 50% more mileage than our old car. I also added a layer of insulation to the attic. We replaced all the bulbs we could with energy efficient ones that we now learn have mercury in them. Oh well.
But guess what folks. It just doesn't matter. China is coming on line. They put in a brand new DIRTY coal plant about once every week, a little longer. Get that? A new coal plant once every 7-10 days starts up in China. They have about 2,000 new cars a day hitting the streets. In Shanghai they are building about 400 high rises PER YEAR.
Get it? You can stop driving to save the world and shut off your air conditioner and furnace and it just doesn't matter cause China is seeing GROWTH on a scale THE WORLD HAS NEVER SEEN. And they need more and more and more energy.
So you better hope that carbon isn't going to overheat the planet cause China is about to pass the US in carbon production and there is no end in sight. And that's JUST China. A little old country called INDIA is walking in Chinas footsteps.
So lets stop pretending we can run around our homes unplugging everything and save the planet, we can't.
Sell that car and get an Escalade. Show it to the Chinese how bad YOU can be!
Right, steve.
You make all these energy saving moves and when the power company starts to see less income, they raise the rates and you're right back where you started. Meanwhile, in another year China is going to look like LA on an ozone-alert day, only permanently. China and India will be so poluted in a couple of years they'll kill themselves eating food produced on the poisoned land and drinking the poisoned water.
Since there's pretty much no chance to save the planet, work on saving yourselves.
The power company's can't keep up wight GROWING demand in the US which is why we always have new plants coming on line every year in the US. But not at the rate of China....and ours are cleaner than China's.
In the end, there is only one answer, we will all be driving rechargeable cars. The only question is if the "environmentalists" are going to force us to keep using and building more coal plants to power those cars or if they will finally grow up and let America build carbon free nuclear plants.
Excellent. Totally gives me the clear advantage driving my Urban Armored Personell Carrier, otherwise known as SUV.
Not if you get popped by another advantaged SUV or an 18 wheeler licensed in Mexico running bald tires and loose lug nuts.
Golly mister! Your truck is so big and manly! We're all sooooo intimidated!
Does anybody know anything about the Mercury Mariner hybrid. My daughter is thinking of getting one with two babies to cart around she needs something with room for the carseats. Just wondering?
I drive Mazda Protege5 (hatchback) with manual gear, I get an average of 35 mpg and I got this car in 2002, great cargo space and trunk capacity and stylish design.
Why would your daughter buy a SUV ? With 2 kids she should look at the following models, all have 5 star crash ratings, great leg room for the rear seats, stylish design, 4 cylinder dynamic engine, and consume even less than a hybrid SUV
Mazda 3 hatchback
Bora Wagon
Honta Fit
Toyota Matrix or the american Pontiac Vibe
I bought a Honda Civic 4-door hybrid a year and a half ago, and I love it.
I'm sure it will fit 2 car seats.
The batteries are between the back seat and the trunk, so it moves the center of gravity of the car back further than most cars -- such that it handles like a sports car.
Very very high consumer reports ratings, as well.
With the gas prices at the time, I calculated that the difference between the price of the hybrid and non-hybrid civic would be paid for in 3 years in gas savings -- but I was betting that gas prices would go up, basically, and it would save me a lot more than that.
And indeed it do!
Thanks I'll let her know.
For the astute, the price for well used 1990 era's Geo Metro's, is skyrocketing. They get the mileage of a Prius without the 20+ grand price tag.
Why not just drive a go-cart or golf cart.
Is a well-used Geo Metro even road worthy?
My last driver was an 89 Civic HB that got 33 and 36 MPG real world.
My 2000 Mazda Protege 4-door (1.6L engine, manual 5-speed) gets real world 36-38mpg highway, and ~30-32mpg (hard to estimate on limited milage) city driving.
The cars are out there already. You just have to look for them and change your expectataions. My little car already gets better milage highway than many of the hybrids.
So I guess the other 80% are gas hogs. We've got a long ways to go.
Driving smaller cars is great, but if we want the price of oil to go down we need to open up for more drilling in Alaska and off the coasts.
Trust me, the caribu will walk around the oil fields and wont think any less of us.
That will get us maybe 2 years and then what are we going to do after that? We're like a junkie thinking that "just one more fix" is going to do the trick.
Although I disagree about two years being the end of it, I would say we build lots of nuclear plants so we don't burn fossil fuels to power the grid. We could also lower the speed limits and raise cafe standards.
Maybe now I'll feel safer driving my Honda Civic Hatch Back on the highways.
Less Hummers and dufusses in their shinny pickups that were meant to be work vehicles and are now penis extensions.
Is it not possible to make a compact Hummer?
Yes, it is. You take an IED and place it under the car. What's left after the bang is pretty compact.
In the article a Detroit Executive claims that the consumer shift was the sharpest he had seen in 31 years. I'm calling Bullsh*t. The 2 oil shocks of the 1970's caused drastic shifts away from huge Detroit iron and they were not ready. Three decades later they still are not ready. My cat could have done a better job planning for the future.
"In what industry analysts are calling a first, about one in five vehicles sold in the United states was a compact or sub compact car in April."
",,,industry analysts are calling a first..."???
WTF??? Is every industry analyst in this country too damn young to remember that the Big Three went ape crazy building compacts after the gas embargo of the early seventies? Helllllooooo?
Yep Ernestine - my Parents bought a Ford Pinto Wagon in 1974 for exactly that reason - fuel economy but space enough to move around 4 pre-teen boys.
Anybody else here remember the Ford Pinto, the Chevy Vega, the AMC Gremlin? All saw their sales peak in the mid 1970s. My first car was a 1976 Chevy Monza coupe (bought in 1984) with a tiny 4Cyl engine and manual 5-speed trany that got ~40mpg highway. My roomie in College drove a 1976 Toyota Corolla at the same time and I got better gas milage.
And who can forget the Chevy Chevette, the Dodge Omni, and the Plymouth Horizon hatchbacks?
Its not a new idea folks. It is just an idea that the Big 3 forgot about for a couple of decades while they sold us gas-guzzling penis substitutes.
Those weren't very well made cars. A Vega was likely to rust out before you made the last payment on it. There's a reason you don't see any of them on the road these days.
No arguement Kong - the Vega was a rust bucket, and the Pinto blew up if you hit it from behind too hard.
The point is - if we had stayed on this track, and improved the small cars rather than building huge-ass penis substitutes and marketing them to soccer moms - we would have been well on the way to haveing a crop of efficient, decent compact American made cars.
Instead - we ceeded the market to the Japanese, Koreans, and Europeans.
It's called the knowledge gap. It starts in high school and continues well into the professional life of most US citizens. Analysts of any industry are generally regarded a joke within the industry itself. They are being used and manipulated by companies all the time.
And what percentage of cars sold in the rest of the world are compacts? Judging from the pictures I have seen of the streets of Europe and Asia, I would not be surprised if on those continents 4 out of 5 cars sold is a compact.
We recently went to Italy. The majority of new cars we saw were smaller than anything one would call a compact in the US.
In France, when people buy a SUV they must pay a fee (up to 1600 euros) for the CO2 emission. The concept : you pollute, you pay.
If you buy a compact car (and it doesn't have to be a hybrid, just a car that gets good gas mileage and low emission), the Government gives you from 1500 to 300 euros to be deducted from the price tag, the bonus check depends on the car CO2 emissions. And this compact car are safer than SUV, they get 5 star crash ratings while SUVs get 4 star rating.
I hope americans realize that one can move his family with a compact car and not just with a SUV ...
I have started to notice the high priced SUV's are next to nothing now.
I saw a major dealers lot with 3 used Navigators all blinged out with those huge wagon wheels and all, the 2006 model had a price of cash special of $7995 ! Now this SUV would have been in $30's or more just last year or 2.
Say Mr. Salesman, what kind of miles per gallon does does that vehicle get ?!
If you have to ask, you can't afford it ....
Pathetic fact is there are great fuel efficient cars already available everywhere else in the world except here.
In Europe the average gas mileage is 45 mpg ... No matter gasoline or diesel, compact or sedans. The European regulations are enforced strictly and every 2 years the regulations get tougher. So the european auto industry invests a lot in R&D to make sure their cars comply to the new regulations. It's a way of creating innovation.
Agreed pathetic that we are only at 20% and only less than 2% Diesels.
The other major incentive for lower mpg in UK at least is a tax incentive on company cars. The value to the employee of the vehicle on the tax return is based on the CO2 output per mile so you will see in Europe this measure is always given in the performance figures. Part of the reason why Diesels are so popular.
Blue Tooth!
BlueTooth!
Blue Tooth, our SUV's have BLUE TOOTH !
Come and get them
And lots of cup holders!
New York Times | BILL VLASIC | May 1, 2008 10:09 PM