Detroit Has Had It with Cars

https://www.chicagobusiness.com/opinion/detroit-has-had-it-cars

by avonmach • 8 years ago

21 96 8 years ago

SUVs existed 30 years ago?

My family has one vehicle, an SUV. I'm a newish dad and I don't understand how you do parent stuff without an SUV. I would have to have multiple vehicles if I had a sedan.

greglindahl• 8 years ago

Have you ever heard of a "station wagon" or "minivan"? Also the Chevy Suburban has existed for a long, long time.

pandapower2• 8 years ago

This. An SUV is just a station wagon or minivan with more cosmetic appeal.

Not a bad thing. Kind of clever really. Car manufacturers figured out how to deliver a vehicle that has the benefits of a minivan with an external appearance free of the "I just traded my cool car for a minivan, my life is over" negative association.

NeedMoreTea• 8 years ago

SUVs have been around since the 70s. Maybe earlier.

Here in Europe many, probably most, parents do parent stuff without an SUV just fine. If you have more than average number of kids an estate (stationwagon), or people carrier (minivan, I think) seems to work perfectly well.

An estate drives just as nicely as any car, SUVs and people carriers often don't.

jessriedel• 8 years ago

Most SUVs in the US are unibody construction now. The difference between them and minivans is mostly cosmetic.

siculars• 8 years ago

This. Same boat. Have a Mazda CX-5. No clue how one functions without an SUV. That said, my wife has a Honda Accord - she is always driving my SUV and is actively looking to trading into some sort of SUV especially as we start thinking second kid.

I'll also just wrap that whole thing up and say Tesla seems to be selling sedans just fine. Let's not forget that GM is the company that willfully killed people to save money on a $0.25 ignition switch.

sorenjan7• 8 years ago

What can an SUV do that something like a Volvo V60/V90, Audi A4/A6 or similar cant? Do you really need the extra ground clearance because you have a kid in the car? A Honda Accord should work just fine for three kids, at least the estate version.

peferron• 8 years ago

I'm also a newish dad. Our only car is a Honda Fit and we're doing fine, I don't recall ever running out of space. I'm not sure what we'd need a SUV for as long as we don't go off-road.

Of course that'll change if we have a second child, but even then a minivan seems much more practical than a SUV.

dwd3• 8 years ago

A Honda Fit is like a Tardis - it seems larger on the inside than the outside and you can fit in an insane amount of stuff due to the flat floor plan. I used to own one (a Honda Jazz) and used it to shift fridges and other items you'd normally need a ute for. Super reliable as well.

dbt00• 8 years ago

I have two teenage children.

I still drive a Mazda 5, even though they've been out of production for several years. Seats 6 (if two are small children) on the wheel base and drive train of a Mazda 3 hatchback. It was our only family car for several years with pets and kids and sports and all the normal family bullshit people do.

Our other family car is a Subaru Outback. It has much better ground clearance than the Mazda and seats 5 adults. You can lay the seats down and put a lot of crap in there if you need to move a bunch of shit around.

Neither of these are SUVs. We never came close to needing an SUV for everyday driving.

kenhwang15• 8 years ago

Depends on which generation Outback, based on your description of better ground clearance, I think it's 4th of 5th generation which is marketed as and considered an "SUV". That's the exact vehicle type that is replacing cars.

Even real SUVs (Tahoe/Expedition/4runner) are becoming replaced by CUVs.

dagw• 8 years ago

Subaru Outback.

Isn't the Outback an SUV?

btgeekboy2• 8 years ago

A lot of modern SUVs aren't like the SUVs of yesteryear. The Honda CR-V, Toyota RAV4, Ford Escape and the like are basically tall hatchbacks - they're not built on truck chassis like the GM Suburban or the Ford Expedition used to be.

If you're not driving aggressively, where you need minimal weight and a low CG, a modern SUV is generally more versatile than a car, and more stylish than a minivan, while still offering a ride and gas mileage that's on par with equivalent cars.

wkpinecone3• 8 years ago

At over 1.6 tons a RAV4 is still hundreds of kg heavier than a sedan and has significantly more wind resistance and higher fuel consumption. It's not as bad as even bigger SUVs but it's hardly efficient. It's not difficult to find more efficient sedans with more legroom or equivalent trunk size.

deepakhj• 8 years ago

2019 rav4 hybrid does 41/37/39 mpg. (City/highway/combined)

eigenvector4• 8 years ago

Yes, modern 'crossover' SUVs are more efficient than the truck-based ones, but they're also not any more functional than a station wagon or minivan. Many of them actually have very little cargo capacity unless the 2nd row is folded down. Although some can be sold with true 4WD it's usually a significant cost add-on that most people don't buy. The change in styling has eaten up a good portion of the fuel efficiency gains from more efficient modern drivetrains for nothing except vanity.

fatnoah• 8 years ago

The change in styling has eaten up a good portion of the fuel efficiency gains from more efficient modern drivetrains for nothing except vanity.

TBH, I think a lot of people like the crossovers mostly because they feel like they're sitting higher off the ground. For whatever reason, that creates a feeling of safety.

keeganjw• 8 years ago

Sure, Americans are buying fewer sedans but they're definitely buy way fewer American sedans. Domestics ones just haven't been as good as imports for a long long time. Why buy a Chevy Cruze when Toyota Corollas and Honda Civics exist? Add in Hyundai, Kia, and Volkswagen's offerings and it's no contest.

PhantomGremlin• 8 years ago

The US content of many Toyota and Honda sedans is quite high. They're "domestics", not "imports".

Toyota and Honda are able to build American sedans. Apparently GM isn't.

sorenjan7• 8 years ago

The number of SUVs and pickups sold in the US shows that gasoline is way too cheap there. Sure, a select few, maybe even a more significant portion, use pickups for work. But the SUVs are simply a waste, weighing several hundred kg more than necessary to do the job and less aerodynamic than a normal car. And I'm pretty sure a lot of the pickup owners use them mainly because of their image. I rarely see tradesmen in pickups here, stuff like VW Caddy is really popular though.

Very few people actually need an SUV. They like being in this large heavy thing because they feel safer and see further, so they buy it instead of a station wagon. If fuel was more reasonable priced to better reflect the external cost they would have to decide if the added cost of driving an unnecessarily thirsty vehicle was worth it.

Meanwhile the last time we had as much CO2 in the atmosphere as we have now were several million years ago, with sea levels about ten meters higher than they are now, we have severe droughts, wildfires, melting polar ice, rapidly diminishing glaciers, melting permafrost, and so on. And the American people not only elects a president that doesn't even believe the white house commissioned climate report, they continue to buy large vehicles that burn too much fuel.

I'm pretty sure we will see more and more conflicts and climate refugees in our lifetime when people are driven from their land by floods, droughts, or similar.

https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/gasoline_prices/

joe_the_user2• 8 years ago

There's no way to make gas expensive enough that the wealthy are deterred from buying gas guzzlers but the poor are able to drive something (and thus get to work, etc). When you have some groups with far more income and wealth than others, controlling behavior with taxes becomes difficult to impossible.

The only way to achieve fuel economy in American cars is by regulation.

adrianN3• 8 years ago

It would already help if 80% of the people who now choose an SUV would choose a small car.

kenhwang15• 8 years ago

The obvious solution is to tax automakers based on their overall fuel economy instead of breakout by cars/trucks. The problem is that it pretty much kills the US auto industry since they're almost always the least fuel efficient in every segment and bias heavily towards making large vehicles.

whalesalad• 8 years ago

Cars aren’t the primary green house gas issue. Animal agriculture and energy are. Plus, America only accounts for about 15% of greenhouse gas emissions.

So even if all of us hedonistic Americans drove tiny little cars the current global warming trend would continue.

You make decent arguments but the fact of the matter is it’s a drop in the bucket.

sorenjan7• 8 years ago

Transportation accounts for 28% of USA's greenhouse gas emissions. And the point is that instead of increasing your carbon footprint because other sources are greater, you should try to decrease it. Of course there are other issues of equal or greater importance, like mass consumption of cheap stuff manufactured in Asia and transported around the world, but choosing a Ford Explorer instead of a Ford Focus doesn't exactly help.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas_emissions_by_th...

baroffoos2• 8 years ago

Literally everything is a drop in the bucket. All those drops have filled the bucket but any time you point one out someone will cry "But thats only x% of the problem"

scarejunba• 8 years ago

15% is huge. 1 in every seven tons of GHG is from a single country? That’s wild. China is as bad. But neither are ‘only’.

DanBC• 8 years ago

America only accounts for about 15% of greenhouse gas emissions.

That's an enormous amount, especially since the US is about 5% of the world population.

prawn• 8 years ago

Were they advocating for "tiny little cars" or just suggesting something more appropriately sized for a subset of people?

Ideally, people would have easier access to a certain type of car when they needed it, rather than buying that type of car for all activities so they felt prepared.

eigenvector4• 8 years ago

Even within the limited segment that does actually 'need' a truck, American trucks are unnecessarily large. I drive a pickup every day at work, I was still shocked when I went to Texas seeing a half-ton pickup truck be the default vehicle everywhere.

The Toyota Hilux, probably the most common working pickup truck in the world, would look like a toy in a suburban American mall parking lot.

NegativeLatency• 8 years ago

You can thank the US government for that. :/ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax

rasz• 8 years ago

Eighties-nineties Toyota Hilux maybe, those do look like toys compared to 2018 model. Modern Hilux is just as fat as any other US truck.

anfilt2• 8 years ago

I really hate how big trucks are in the US. I wish there were something slightly bigger than a Kei truck. I would really like a something like that.

_cs2017_2• 8 years ago

Very few people actually need an SUV

Only in the sense that no one needs good food, fashionable clothes, entertainment, cool gadgets, large houses, etc. Take it away from them, and you'll find yourself a very unpopular leader.

If you prefer to be one with nature, go ahead, there's still plenty of places where you can do that. It's not something most people will choose though.

sorenjan7• 8 years ago

I'm not talking about leadership, I'm talking about culture, morals, and personal accountability. People are making the wrong choice, and it's selfish. There's a middle ground between being one with nature and driving a 4x4 between the suburb and the city.

Much of the other things you describe as necessities to be happy with your leadership are also big problems. Overconsumption of clothes, meat, gadgets, too big houses, etc. Overshoot day took place on August 1 this year. Hurry up and consume as much as you can, hopefully we'll both be dead before famine strikes the rich parts of the world, but at least we got ours.

https://www.overshootday.org/

TeMPOraL• 8 years ago

I'm pretty sure we will see more and more conflicts and climate refugees in our lifetime when people are driven from their land by floods, droughts, or similar.

I'm worried now. In France there's been some pretty intensive protesting over past two weeks, and from what I read it's about (or at least started as being about) increased petroleum tax. If this is in any way representative, then we can kiss proper emission taxing good-bye. The general population doesn't seem to appreciate the magnitude of the problem, and thus attempting to actually mitigate it seems a political suicide (and/or invitation for civil war).

adrianN3• 8 years ago

See also: protests against coal mine closures

anongraddebt• 8 years ago

The optimistic outlook is that 'Detroit' (Ford, GM, etc.) will either become a collection of new software companies or go extinct within ~10-20 years. That is, the first wave of autonomous vehicles (whenever that will occur) will be green-friendly in design.

black-tea• 8 years ago

The cars are obese just like the people. It's sickening.

kenhwang15• 8 years ago

Modern crossovers (marketed as SUVs) can pretty much do everything well enough. It can haul people and cargo just as well as a car/wagon or minivan; wagons are generally not offered in the US so that's one less option for a cargo hauler. Poor road quality and consumer preference favors the higher ground clearance than a minivan. AWD is still a rare option on cars, but optionally available on every crossover on the market. Gas is cheap and crossovers are really close to cars in fuel economy. The biggest crossover drawback of increased rollover risk has pretty much been eliminated by modern stability systems.

kokokokoko• 8 years ago

SUVs have moved into the role of the default family car. We are seeing a reduction in people without children owning cars. Trucks are preferred in more rural areas.

Therefore, this appears to be the effect of less new automobile purchases by people without children who live in urban areas. I wouldn't draw too many dramatic conclusions outside of that.

Tiktaalik• 8 years ago

Bad news for pedestrians since SUVs are so much more dangerous than cars in a collision.

http://www.governing.com/topics/transportation-infrastructur...

Gibbon1• 8 years ago

Thing I and two friends noticed about newer cars, the wide low sloped A pillars create blind spots making it difficult to see pedestrians in crosswalks.

PankajGhosh• 8 years ago

I think the sentiment here is not acknowledging the full picture of shift in car ownership in US.

While it is true that more families are opting for SUVs, but that is because more families are opting to share a car (preferably an SUV from utility perspective) rather than owning two or more cars/sedans. The increase in availability of rideshare (Uber/Lyft) is also playing a part in this gradual shift.

(I can't seem to find the study which stated above, but will keep looking and update this comment when I find it)

olivermarks• 8 years ago

The US (and probably Europe) are arguably ceding their ICE automobile manufacturing to China, who will manufacture future government controlled EV transportation. The authorities will decide what vehicle you are allowed to travel in and where to or not. Related article: Can Germany survive the ‘iPhone moment’ for cars?

https://www.ft.com/content/61684fa6-d2f6-11e8-a9f2-7574db66b...

dwd3• 8 years ago

Discontinuing the Bolt is a shame or are they shifting full production to South Korea?

btgeekboy2• 8 years ago

It's the Volt they're discontinuing, not the Bolt. 2 different cars with unfortunately similar names.

dwd3• 8 years ago

Bah, probably should stop commenting via my phone - hard to proof a message when you can't see it all on the screen at once.

throwawaythekey• 8 years ago

The worst thing about other people's SUVs is they obstruct your vision. I suspect there's an arms race going on with more and more people picking up SUVs to see around other cars.

kenhwang15• 8 years ago

My coupe completely fits below the window line of most crossovers. Driving is terrifying sometimes. I suspect part of the CUV trend is just an arms race to keep up height wise with the general vehicle population.

intrasight• 8 years ago

They're not good at it, and even if they were, there's not as much profit in it. And GM's approach of making a dozen cars that fill the same ecological niche stopped making sense many years ago.

teilo• 8 years ago

That's OK, because I've had it with Detroit's cars. In 2014 I went from an Impala to a Mazda 6, and this year from the 6 to a fully loaded Passat assembled in Tennessee. The closest thing from Detroit cost more, had lower fuel economy, a lower warranty, fewer features, and was less comfortable.

alphabettsy2• 8 years ago

Detroit automakers have for some reason been unable to complete with foreign carmakers in the US for some time now. Chevy sold about half as many Malibu’s as Honda sold of the Accord, same goes for Cruze vs Civic. What I don’t understand is how selling 180k vehicles (Cruze and Malibu) isn’t enough to consider them viable?

At the same time, am I crazy to think these companies won’t find themselves in or on the edge of bankruptcy again when the market changes?

justin66• 8 years ago

Americans don’t buy cars anymore. They buy SUVs and pickups.

OK, that isn’t strictly true: Sedans, station wagons, hatchbacks and the like were selling at a 5.5 million-vehicle annual rate in October. But that’s half the pace of three decades ago.

Only a slice of the overall vehicle market worth tens of billions of dollars. No big deal.

anfilt2• 8 years ago

How about small trucks, not the behemoths that are what most car makers are selling. Like even Toyota's pickups are bigger than I remember and seem to keep getting bigger. Almost all the trucks in the US are made for the US market because of a 25% tariff. It's really annoying.

Detroit Has Had It with Cars

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