Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Jordan
People bought SUVs, when they were not cheaper to buy nor to run, because they were convinced by the automakers, via Madison Avenue advertisers, that they needed them... they wanted them... they'd be cool with them... they'd get laid with them...
I have more faith in Homo Emotionalis Rex to respond to fun, sexy, nonsensical commercials, just like they always have.
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(I'm going to regret this.....)
Steve, American have
wanted big cars for 60+ years. Look at what was made and sold. There were a few effcient cars slipped in (the classic example is the '55 to '57 Chevies) but mostly big boat cars
sold. The youth market wanted High powered cars (small to have an even higher power-to-weight ratio) in the '60 and '70, but the small, effcient car market was always a niche market. Not non-existant, just niche. And don't let all the nostalgic hippies kid you otherwise. Don't take my word for it, look at the sales records.
The clean air act (and high insurance rates - I wonder why?) killed the muscle car dead. The clean air act and the first oil crunch hammered the big boat car. CAFE cause the big three to sharply curtail big boat car production. Now nothing but effcient cars would now be mass produced....
Funny thing happened. People still wanted big boat cars, they just couldn't 1. afford the gas, and 2. find them to buy. As soon as gas dropped in the oil bust, the general American public started looking around to buy their big boat cars again, and couldn't find them. But yankee ingenuity triumphed, and they found the truck/cars called Suburbans that had been in the truck market (which was
not covered by CAFE rules!) for 40 years and said "close enough". And so the big boat car morphed into the SUV. Which brings us to the next major oil crunch, and the same buyer dynamics of the first one. They don't
want small cars, they just figure they need them. At least for now. So the
real answer is not to make everybody drive a tiny alt-fuel car, but to find a way to make an effcient alt-fuel big boat car. And everybody will live happily ever after.