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Everyone I know has been begging for smaller cars for years. Idk why everyone thinks people don’t want them. No one said they didn’t want them it was just decided for us by some CEOs. That seems to be how all of the opinions of “Americans” are formed. Same way the CEO of my company says we all love to go into an empty office and do all of our work online. It’s just bullshit
I think the thing is when they do make them, they’re a shitty American car and nobody wants that so the Detroit execs blame us and go back to making luxury tanks for the wine moms.
I think the REAL issue is that when they sell those little cars people do buy them, but they are people who would have bought a larger more expensive car if that little car wasn’t available.
We have a little Honda fit. Great car. Also a pretty popular car that you see on the road all the damned time. Honda still sells the car globally, but they stopped selling it in the US. Not because it wasn’t selling, but because it was selling to people that would have bought HRVs or Civics (which cost more) instead.
That not true, the Fit started off strong at 80,000/yr sales but by 2020 hit 30,000/yr. Everyone is driving pickups now.
Best selling cars of 2024:
Ford F-Series: 732,139 Chevrolet Silverado: 542,517 Toyota RAV4: 475,193 Tesla Model Y: 405,900 Honda CR-V: 402,791 Ram Pickup: 373,120 GMC Sierra: 340,946 Toyota Camry: 309,876 Nissan Rogue: 245,724 Honda Civic: 242,005 Toyota Corolla: 232,908 Jeep Grand Cherokee: 216,148 Chevrolet Equinox: 207,730 Hyundai Tucson: 206,126 Chevrolet Trax: 200,689 Ford Explorer: 194,094 Toyota Tacoma: 192,813 Subaru Crosstrek: 181,811 Subaru Forester: 175,521 Toyota Highlander: 169,543 Honda Accord: 162,723 Kia Sportage: 161,917 Subaru Outback: 161,814 Toyota Tundra: 159,528 Nissan Sentra: 152,659https://www.caranddriver.com/news/g60385784/bestselling-cars-2024/
Yeah. I want to blame car company executives and do when I’m cranky but ultimately much of this is a problem with drivers. People want big, pedestrian-slaughtering, gas-guzzling planet-killers and as long as we allow don’t take a more aggressive regulatory approach to SUVs and bloated pavement princess pickups it’s going to stay bad.
rare point of view here… that people are responsible for themselves and not everything is some psyop conspiracy wherein people have no agency.
I do still think corporate decision makers bear a portion of the blame. They’d rather make big cars, too, and are doing nothing to use their advertising to help shape consumer demand to be in favor of smaller cars or promote fuel economy. Individual demand exists and people bear responsibility, but it doesn’t exist in a vacuum.
But we blame car companies for not making vehicles OTHER PEOPLE should buy.
The fit isn’t a great car for highway driving. Yeah, they are popular for city drivers would also into mini coopers and SMART cars. There are plenty of ‘little cars’ on the market, but people don’t genreally like them because they are impactical and sucky to drive compared to compact suvs and sedans, that are more or less the same price and offer a way more comfortable experience.
after you go over 65mph it feels like the wheels will fall off, and it’s low weight and box frame makes it blow around like a leaf in any substantial winds. I chose a civic because it was so much safer and more comfortable for highway driving at 70mph+. it is a much stiffer chasis, my civic can hit 110mph before it starts to feel sketchy.
Civic and HRV and CRV are way more stable and comfortable vehicles and get the same mileage, and have more storage space.
A modern Mini Cooper is nothing like a Smart car. It’s comparable in size to a Golf, or a Corolla hatch.
which model? the countryman is bigger, but the basic one is still barely a 4 seater. the 2 door is tiny.
The normal Cooper.
The 4 door Cooper is the same width as the 2 door, 1cm taller, and 16cm longer, based on a 2013-2018 model since that’s what this tool has available:
Compare a 2 door Cooper vs 2 door Golf and it’s barely different:
Or 2 door Cooper vs Smart Fortwo:
The Smart is clearly a smaller size. The Cooper and the Golf are basically the same. There’s definitely a lot more cross shopping of Coopers and Golfs than Coopers and Smarts.
The 40mpg highway mileage that the Fit gets tells me that you have different priorities than I do on the highway.
my civic gets over 40mph on the highway. usually 42+
The HRV and CRV get 12-17% worse mileage on the highway and
nobody wants that so the Detroit execs blame us and go back to making luxury tanks for the wine moms.
Exactly why Stellantis is selling this in the USA in 2026:
this is basically a shitty golf cart. golf cart carries more people and cargo and has the same driving distance.
Golf cart can’t legally carry 4 people on the roads and usually has top speed limited to about half of this one.
What is this?
Is this a Fiat?
There’s a much higher markup on large luxury vehicles so no manufacturer wants to waste their time on smaller cheaper ones.
Same problem with affordable housing units :(
I just walked by two people in adjacent cubicles on a meeting with only each other. Boggles.
I guarantee if vehicles were properly regulated here, and the Big 3 here had to suffer actual consequences for their piss-poor choices, smaller cars would be a more popular choice.
Regulations have partly caused the car size problem. Manufacturers have gas mileage targets/requirements, but they’re scaled based on axle length. Essentially this means they can make small efficient cars, or big expensive cars.
Properly regulated, i.e. closing up all the loopholes.
I already love them
I owned a Ford Festiva, made by Kia, in the 90s. But at that point, I had a fully developed penis and did not need a truck. The 4 doors were for the excess women this attacted.
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please, bring back cars whose engine is just capable of reaching the speed limit, a 70hp engine in a small car is more than enough for the average person. it’ll cost a fraction of a normal American car, and be much cheaper to run and maintain.
and they are so adorable. seeing a kei car or a delica in the wild makes me happy.
be much cheaper to run and maintain.
no one mentions how heavy vehicles use more tires, brakes, transmissions and wear everything faster.
however big cars cost more and increase so the cost relating to transport. making more money for rich people. that’s why we can’t have nice things
Why leave it to car brains to determine if they like it? The people driving F350 GMC Yukon zero visibility death machines will never. Too bad.
Regulate the size of cars and stop pedestrian/biker deaths.
Regulate the size of cars and stop pedestrian/biker deaths.
I think that’s the point of the USA, though. You’re not allowed to indulge in nature, only industry.
Once the electronic industrial dystopia is fully formed, they will start pimping nature for money.
Sounds good to me, I’d love a cheap small electric car
I have wanted a Kei truck since I first saw one. It’s me sized and I love them.
Can USians stop being dependent on cars for transportation?
Can we unfuck our infrastructure and bring all of our jobs/utilities/amenities closer?
Would if I could
Public transit stops running by the time I’m off work
Most Americans aren’t like me, but I love my Smart car. I got into it late, I thought the cars were really goofy and stupid when they hit the scene. It’s now my favorite car of all that I’ve owned, including my previous Porsche Boxter S. The Smart car was $6k used, it costs a little over $20 to fill up with gas, the 6 gallon tank takes just under a minute. It’s still a manual which I love and it’s so easy to drive. There is no extended hood so you never worry about scraping things when turning. The turning radius is insane by the way; the wheels turn to almost 90 degrees. I only need 1.5 lanes to make a U-turn and the power steering and clutch is very light. It also goes plenty fast which I was concerned about, I don’t feel scared driving on the highway in it at all. It really doesn’t feel small when you’re in it until you look behind and remember that the car just ends as far as your arm can reach. Smarts are made by Mercedes so they’re good quality. It’s a shame they were discontinued in the US, but I’m not surprised at all.
This all sounds amazing… Except having no rear. I was rear ended by a drunk driver and was able to walk away (relatively) unharmed because my trunk was a massive crumple zone able to soak up all the energy.
They surprisingly have high safety ratings. There is a trunk, it even opens like a standard truck, it’s just not very big. The frame doesn’t get crushed, but the car is very light and I’m sure the force of an impact can still cause a lot of damage, or of course the car is more easily pushed into places it shouldn’t go in a crash because it’s so light.
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Honda fit owners were born ready!!
Best car im thinking of another
Not unless they’re made out of titanium; half of the other vehicles are monster trucks.
that won’t help in a crash, (unless it adds enough mass to outweigh a dumb American car).
What, a cheap car that is perfect for commutes and milk-runs, gets stellar mileage, zero unnecessary frills, with no over-engineered electronic crap? I can’t even get a new car w/o a crappy electronic center console if I throw money at the dealership. Who cares if it’s like driving a mail truck: sign us up!
Many of us want these, but cannot obtain them new or even register them in our home state(s).
That said, ending the Chicken Tax might turn companies like Ford inside-out in the process. It’s an economic Jenga tower of automotive suck over here.
Give them European fuel prices, and they’ll convert quickly.
I generally like mine (Nissan Dayz Rooks HS ~2018). My two biggest complaints are lack of power for certain driving (like with 3 passengers and luggage uphill) but some have turbochargers, and secondly that the smaller footprint does make them feel much more flimsy in windy conditions. I’ve been blown around the expressway and felt like I was going to get blown over on a couple of occasions. Otherwise, I am quite happy. I still try to walk/train/cycle/motorcycle first, but sometimes that’s not possible or practical.
How about huge overweight and expensive kei cars?
