xcel
10-28-2006, 03:58 AM
The question gets asked again as foreigners bring in really small vehicles like the Honda Fit, Toyota Yaris and BMW Mini. (http://www.forbesautos.com/news/headlines/2006/october/fdc102706-flintplot.html)
Jerry Flint - Forbes - Oct. 27, 2006
http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/501/2007_Toyota_Yaris_Hatch.jpg
The fact is Detroit executives and the public just don't like small cars like the Toyota Yaris.
One day I will pick up my New York Times and see a review of a new film titled Who Killed the Small Car?. The reviewer will rank it with Who Killed the Electric Car? and Al Gore's movie about Earth warming. And it will turn out, in the film, that General Motors led a conspiracy against the small car because it wanted to melt the polar ice caps, to create more puddles, to sell high-suspension Hummers.
It's true that Detroit doesn't want to make small cars. The question gets asked again as foreigners bring in really small vehicles like the Honda Fit, Toyota Yaris and BMW Mini. The French-built Smart car, from DaimlerChrysler, will arrive soon.
But the home teams build none. General Motors is happy importing one from Korea, small enough but with an unimpressive 26 mpg fuel economy in the city. Chrysler has given up the idea of building one here and hints of making one with a Chinese company over there, an iffy proposition. Ford talked of building one here or in Mexico, but that talk has quieted down, and I suspect it won't happen.
What's the trouble? It's not a plot to melt the North Pole. Two other theories that go in the myth category:
First myth: Small cars, small profits. That's the thinking, but great car companies have been built on small cars. The Model T was pretty small and low-priced at times - $500, or some $7,500 today - and it made Henry Ford one of the richest men in the world. Volkswagen came out of the rubble of World War II with a small car, the Beetle, and grew into a world power. Toyota and Honda built their empires on small-car profits. Ford did quite well with its Escorts not too long ago, too. Small cars can make money.
Second myth: Wages here are too high for small cars. VW, Ford and Opel (German GM) make small cars in Germany, where wages are high. That Model T was built by very high-priced labor: $5 a day.
No, the fact is Detroit executives and the public just don't like small cars. Bigger has always been better in the Motor City. Designers never liked tiny cars, either. "It's one thing for a small company, a marginal firm, to pioneer a new concept like that and really push it," said the late George Romney, who headed American Motors and pushed smaller cars. "But it's another thing for people who already have a big slice to begin pushing something that undercuts their basic market."
The smaller American carmakers have tried making small cars: the Nash Rambler, Hudson Jet, Kaiser Henry J (sold by Sears, too, as the Allstate), Willys Aero and Crosley. They all failed. Volkswagen tried to build its small car in America, in a plant in Pennsylvania. This business was a failure. A half-century ago Henry Ford II said, "It seems reasonable to ask: If we need a smaller car, do we need a smaller refrigerator or a smaller washing machine?"
That still is a good question. Americans like things big - big steaks, big houses, big stores. We spend more time in our cars than any other people, using them to get to work, the supermarket, the movies, the beach. Small cars (which I define as running about 165 inches long or less and 2,800 pounds or less) do not account for even 2 percent of the 17 million vehicles sold here annually. The only magically successful small car sold here was the Volkswagen Beetle of a half-century ago.
There are other problems. Small cars have small engines. Detroit specialized in V8 engines and sixes. Its fours have been mediocre.
And, as you drift down the weight spectrum, the value goes out faster than the cost. The design and tooling expense is still there. You save some steel, but that's the cheap stuff in a car. You will note that Honda and Toyota don't build the Fit and Yaris here. They run a few extra off the big line in Japan and ship them.
To build a successful small car in America we'd need two things. First is a great design that makes a small car seem exciting and sexy, not cheap. Then you can get customers to pay top dollar for it, as they do with the Mini. Alas, Detroit designers for the most part have become cautious to the point of boring.
The other necessary item is volume. If you could sell 600,000 a year, there would be profit aplenty. But you can't sell 600,000. We all admire the Mini - but how many do Americans buy? Forty thousand a year.
I love small cars. I wish Detroit could build some here. But the American masses do not want them, any more than they want to move into Japanese-size apartments.
Jerry Flint - Forbes - Oct. 27, 2006
http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/501/2007_Toyota_Yaris_Hatch.jpg
The fact is Detroit executives and the public just don't like small cars like the Toyota Yaris.
One day I will pick up my New York Times and see a review of a new film titled Who Killed the Small Car?. The reviewer will rank it with Who Killed the Electric Car? and Al Gore's movie about Earth warming. And it will turn out, in the film, that General Motors led a conspiracy against the small car because it wanted to melt the polar ice caps, to create more puddles, to sell high-suspension Hummers.
It's true that Detroit doesn't want to make small cars. The question gets asked again as foreigners bring in really small vehicles like the Honda Fit, Toyota Yaris and BMW Mini. The French-built Smart car, from DaimlerChrysler, will arrive soon.
But the home teams build none. General Motors is happy importing one from Korea, small enough but with an unimpressive 26 mpg fuel economy in the city. Chrysler has given up the idea of building one here and hints of making one with a Chinese company over there, an iffy proposition. Ford talked of building one here or in Mexico, but that talk has quieted down, and I suspect it won't happen.
What's the trouble? It's not a plot to melt the North Pole. Two other theories that go in the myth category:
First myth: Small cars, small profits. That's the thinking, but great car companies have been built on small cars. The Model T was pretty small and low-priced at times - $500, or some $7,500 today - and it made Henry Ford one of the richest men in the world. Volkswagen came out of the rubble of World War II with a small car, the Beetle, and grew into a world power. Toyota and Honda built their empires on small-car profits. Ford did quite well with its Escorts not too long ago, too. Small cars can make money.
Second myth: Wages here are too high for small cars. VW, Ford and Opel (German GM) make small cars in Germany, where wages are high. That Model T was built by very high-priced labor: $5 a day.
No, the fact is Detroit executives and the public just don't like small cars. Bigger has always been better in the Motor City. Designers never liked tiny cars, either. "It's one thing for a small company, a marginal firm, to pioneer a new concept like that and really push it," said the late George Romney, who headed American Motors and pushed smaller cars. "But it's another thing for people who already have a big slice to begin pushing something that undercuts their basic market."
The smaller American carmakers have tried making small cars: the Nash Rambler, Hudson Jet, Kaiser Henry J (sold by Sears, too, as the Allstate), Willys Aero and Crosley. They all failed. Volkswagen tried to build its small car in America, in a plant in Pennsylvania. This business was a failure. A half-century ago Henry Ford II said, "It seems reasonable to ask: If we need a smaller car, do we need a smaller refrigerator or a smaller washing machine?"
That still is a good question. Americans like things big - big steaks, big houses, big stores. We spend more time in our cars than any other people, using them to get to work, the supermarket, the movies, the beach. Small cars (which I define as running about 165 inches long or less and 2,800 pounds or less) do not account for even 2 percent of the 17 million vehicles sold here annually. The only magically successful small car sold here was the Volkswagen Beetle of a half-century ago.
There are other problems. Small cars have small engines. Detroit specialized in V8 engines and sixes. Its fours have been mediocre.
And, as you drift down the weight spectrum, the value goes out faster than the cost. The design and tooling expense is still there. You save some steel, but that's the cheap stuff in a car. You will note that Honda and Toyota don't build the Fit and Yaris here. They run a few extra off the big line in Japan and ship them.
To build a successful small car in America we'd need two things. First is a great design that makes a small car seem exciting and sexy, not cheap. Then you can get customers to pay top dollar for it, as they do with the Mini. Alas, Detroit designers for the most part have become cautious to the point of boring.
The other necessary item is volume. If you could sell 600,000 a year, there would be profit aplenty. But you can't sell 600,000. We all admire the Mini - but how many do Americans buy? Forty thousand a year.
I love small cars. I wish Detroit could build some here. But the American masses do not want them, any more than they want to move into Japanese-size apartments.