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Smart Car Coming To the US In Jan. 2008
Blahbooboo3 writes "After many delays and missed promises, the Smart Car is finally coming to the US in January 2008. Smart Car uses a specially designed crash cage to protect the driver and gets upwards of 40 miles per gallon. Crash tests are very positive. The car is deceptively large inside, as showcased by this great ad from the Smart USA site. The second-generation Fortwo will be offered first, starting around $14,000. Unfortunately the slick roadster isn't coming any time soon."
For some reason when I look at the price all I think is that there are better cars for that price. Why would I buy one of those when I can get a yaris or scion that gets the same milage?
Firstly, you can change the bodywork easily for different designs. Secondly it's a Mercedes, Thirdly it can park in small spaces in cities which other cars can't.
While I am all for more small and fuel efficient cars here, a $14K price tag seems like a bit too much. Why would someone spend that much on a car when they can get 4 door Toyota Corolla for around the same price with the same fuel efficiency? I would think that the $10K range would be more reasonable.
These have already been in Canada for a year or so and judging by the number on the road, they've been selling well. I've spoken to a couple of owners and they love them. Apparently they cope well in the snow (not that we had much in Ottawa this past winter) so they should be perfectly viable in the northern States. Mind you there is something ludicrous-looking about them, especially when you see them next to the ubiquitous SUVs. People thought the same thing about the Morris Minor and the Mini Cooper 40+ years ago. Now, the Cooper is trendy!
The Smart gets more than 40mpg; the most efficient Toyotas (in the US) get up to 36 (manual Yaris according to fueleconomy.gov).
If you want a Toyota comparable to the Smart, you're looking at an Aygo, which is even smaller than a Yaris and not sold in the US.
By the way, about those Scions: although the first-gen xA and xB had the same 104hp, 1.5L engine as the Echo and Yaris, the new xB and xD will have larger ones and will probably get less mileage.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
(John Stewart voice) Gooo on...
about a woman who bought an RV, drove it on the highway, set the cruise control, went back to make breafast, and, of course, the RV crashed.Yeah, stupid people are funny.
The woman sued the RV maker for not explicitly stating in the manual that she needed to be behind the wheel when on cruise control and won a million bucks.Of course she did! The system is out of control, I tells ya.
Did you ever consider that your father might be telling you an urban myth?
... and then they built the supercollider.
Simply because it is cool! The Smart is the equivalent of the MAC.
It is mostly used by young people that creativity related careers like architects and designers. It is also quite common as a company car for innovative dynamic companies.
Besides, you can park perpendicularly in a street that only allows parallel parking.
Fear is the mind-killer.
I guess when it's your parents who tell you these whoppers, you wouldn't bother to check up on this urban legend with Snopes. You can take some consolation in the fact that Snopes points out that false rumors of this variety have been circulating since the late 1970's.
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You can stick it in the back of your truck for when you need to get somewhere
inaccessible by normal means - like closer to the mall entrance than a
regular parking spot.
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Yeah, being able to park nose in between two parallel parked cars on the street would be great for cities. But what the crash test video didn't show was what happens when you get hit by someone in a big SUV. The biggest selling point of the big cars these days is still safety for the people inside. Soccer mom don't give a shit about gas milage when it comes to protecting their babies.
We are all just people.
I can only assume that the extremely small size of the Smart leads to an attempt to overcompensate. Most Smarts are driven as fast as the can go, whenever possible (which isn't very fast, but far faster than safe for the size of car). They will cut you up at junctions, they will race you, they park in a manner that is often extremely selfish.
It seems that in Europe, only total dicks buy the Smart.
Have you looked at the videos illustrating how safe they are? Or how about the one in the UK where they ran the thing against a wall head on. These things are incredibly safe!
Mercedes has safe cars. I know, I have seen a Mercedes roll on the German autobahn (the guy was doing about 170-190). His Mercedes end up upside down. The guy walked out without being hurt. Ok he was shaken, and he looked like, "I survived that?"
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
Just look at Fortwo, taller than it is wide, and figure out what happens when someone runs a red light.
We are all just people.
That might be the stupidest statement I've ever read at Slashdot, and I browse at -1.
Well, considering that, you'd think it'd be safer than other small cars in side impacts, because the door reinforcements are higher off the ground. Also, because it's so short, the side impact actually hits the A and B pillars, the front and back wheels (at the same time!), etc -- the stuff that's rather more solid than the doors.
In a side-impact crash, I would expect the Smart to be more likely to roll and get less smashed-in, meaning that the occupants would be at greater risk for whiplash but less risk for entrapment or getting crushed.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Welcome to the iPhone of the automotive world. Except it's already out in 36 other countries. :-)
You've obviously never seen what happens to a Yaris when it t-bones a Volvo XC90 at 45mph. Just happened here in town yesterday, scared the heck out of me. The Volvo had some bent metal, and the driver walked away. The Yaris was scattered across the intersection, and the driver was pulled out on a stretcher and taken to a hospital by helicopter.
The Smart car has Mercedes engineering behind it, and crashworthiness is superior to anything put out from Toyota.
I used to think the same thing, but guess what? I'm driving a brand new Mitsubishi Eclipse right now. The argument that they "immediately lose a bunch of resale value, the minute you drive them off the lot" is technically correct. But realistically, it doesn't mean as much as people pretend it does. In reality, MOST people buying a new car plan on keeping it for a while. The initial loss in value only affects someone who makes a poor purchasing decision and tries to trade the almost new car back in after only a few months through maybe the first year or two of ownership.
Meanwhile, loans on new vehicles tend to have much better interest rates than loans on used vehicles, so you're not giving as much of your money away to some bank as you pay off your car....
My new car also included such "bonuses" as free roadside assistance during the warranty period. Used car owners generally don't receive benefits like this, and have to pay for a "motor club" membership like AAA to get the same thing.
The warranty itself can be a factor, too. You may or may not get one with your used car purchase, depending on its mileage and all. But it could easily "make or break" the overall "value" of your purchase if something major like a transmission fails 2 or 3 years into the vehicle ownership.
Ultimately, for me, the assurance that my new car doesn't have some worn out part just waiting to fail and greatly inconvenience me when I need my car the most is the *best* reason for buying new. I only own one vehicle, and I count on it daily. If I'm supposed to go to a customer site and can't make it because my car breaks down, that costs me income from both ends at once on a used car that's not in warranty. (Loss of income on a job I can't do, AND loss of income paying for a car repair.) Generally, the dealership will even give me a free rental car while repairing mine under warranty - which they'd never do on used car repairs.
I wouldn't exactly call a Smart "safe," at least compared to larger cars. It might have a spiffy protective cage so that cabin doesn't deform in a crash and smoosh the occupants, but you can't argue with physics. And I'm not talking about mass and collisions with large SUVs. The tiny size means that when you hit something there is less time to decelerate since the distance between the front bumper and the passenger cabin is so small. This means that the force acting on the occupants in a crash is multiple times greater than in a normal sized car. It may be safe for a car its size, but compared to any run of the mill small car it's *NOT* safe.
I blame geof's speakers.
That chance that it gets hit is only half as large as with a regular car!
Bert
In the US the total Dicks drive big SUVs and 4wd pickup trucks that are never driven off pavement.
We need to get them to convert to Smarts.
The amount of sulfur content in the exhaust is entirely dependent on how much is fuel - it can removed during refinement, it just costs a little more. Europe has had strict requirements about sulfur content for quite some time, and the US and Canada both passed laws last year to do the same. As far as the other nasty stuff, catalytic converters and in-engine burn efficiency on diesels have improved to the point where that is really no longer a concern. The only downside that I know of is that some diesel vehicles still have problems getting started in very cold climates, and until the engine warms up may have higher particulate concentration? This might be a concern in canada - I haven't looked into it much myself as I live in the US SW.
Diesel is a great fuel for the economically minded as it is more energy efficient than gasoline, and can also supplemented with biodiesel to the extent it is available (which in turn is much much more efficient than ethanol).
You're right about diesels - in the 1970's and 80's that is. Modern diesels are far cleaner, and the US mandated low sulfur diesel this year for all 2007 and later cars.
BMW and Merc both have developed a european-spec diesel which if theoretically driven in the LA or DC areas where smog is a problem, the air going into the engine is dirtier than the air coming out of the exhaust. You're actually CLEANING the environment, just a little bit. The Mercedes engine passed the 2007 US diesel emissions standards as is, so is currently on sale here already. BMW will begin offering the diesel in their SUV models in 2008. All other manufactuers (including Volkswagen, the only other company that currently produces a small diesel for sedans) are currently refining their engines to meet the new US standards for low sulfer fuels.
In all seriousness, mile-for-mile, a modern diesel engine using low sulfur diself fuel is cleaner than a gasoline engine of the same displacement. Get over it.
"smart" with a lowercase "s" is the correct brand and car name.
is evident in many of these posts. The demonstrated lack of understanding in topics such as statics and dynamics, mechanics, mechanical engineering, crash dynamics, and automotive technology is astounding. Before anyone decides to flame me, I am an aerospace engineer, I build airplanes for one of the greatest living aircraft designers in the world. I am well educated in how cars are supposed to work. I am amazed at the number of Honda/Toyota fanboys that post in here saying things like tantamount to "my Corolla is teh greatest car evar and gets awesome mileage lol" and "my Civic can get the same mileage as the Smart so OBVIOUSLY the Smart car is stupid roflhehe." You just don't get it. What is the size of the engine in your Corolla or your Civic? How much power does it provide? How much power does the car require to maintain 60mph on a straight and level road on a standard day? You're talking about cars over 2,000 pounds. The gas engine in the Fortwo is a turbocharged 700cc 3-cylinder. There are motorcycles with higher displacement engines. And yet the Fortwo is still capable of dealing with traffic. Remember, the car is freaking tiny. It only needs 50-60hp to drive around and still be a useful car.
And don't give me this crap about "zomg the mileage of my corolla is fantastic." Its a load of bullshit. Take a lightweight econobox and you're sure to get decent mileage. Take some good engineering and you can give it a run for its money. I'll take the 27mpg that I get in a 300hp AWD turbocharged 4,000 pound station wagon any day over your Civic. I get a far more useful, safe, fun, and long-lasting vehicle than you ever will. Sure, I paid more for that wagon used than a new Civic, but I can drive _through_ a brick wall unscathed (Top Gear has demonstrated this in a Volvo 740) and you cannot. Are you willing to put a price tag on your life and the lives of your passengers? I'm not.
The safety of Civics and Corollas has never been their selling point. Why do you think they cost so much less than a comparably equipped VW, Volvo, or Mercedes? The cost cutting has to be somewhere, and it is in the safety engineering. I have been in or witnessed accidents with Volvos and Mercedes several times, and in most cases, the Volvo or Mercedes driver comes out ok. Sometimes the Volvo or Mercedes can even drive away from the crash. The same cannot be said for the other vehicle. There was time and effort put into safety by companies like these, and it shows. Mercedes has been a pioneer in safety systems forever; hell, they INVENTED the automobile. Mercedes has been using antilock brakes for over 70 YEARS. ABS isn't even standard on the Corolla. Volvo INVENTED the three point seatbelt almost 50 years ago, but look how long it took before other car companies gave enough of a damn to actually implement them. These are companies that know what they are doing, and are informed, and most of you clearly are not informed.
Wake the fuck up slashdot, this lack of education and knowledge is disturbing.
>... and you won't get laughed at in them either.
That doesn't happen here in the uk, since the vehicle is seen as cool, distinctive and effective.
On the other hand the usa motor market that seems to think driving tanks with the same fuel economy as cars from 80 years ago is ok - they get laughed at, by everyone else in the world. Attitudes are changing this way, thankfully, and maybe one day the usa will 'get it'.
Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
I am getting 33km/l (78 miles per gallon in twelve-finger units) in my Volkswagen Lupo 3L from 2001.
The Lupo can transport 4 persons and reach a top speed in excess of 165km/h (102mph in twelve-finger units). Read more here.
Volkswagen has now ceased building this gem - and well, I guess it would never sell in SUV-loving States of America anyway.
Of course, if you actually drive like that, which car your driving becomes totally moot because no driver will respect you anyhow.
I take it you've never driven in Boston...
And for the record, no, I do not regularly drive like that. But having the option to forcefully merge...
In any case, "respect" comes from a long relationship. On the road, that means nothing. A bunch of strangers that I'll never see again, and around whom I drive defensively because I can't trust any of them to have slept well last night; to have at least one hand on the wheel rather than one on the coffee and one on the cellphone; to have a BAC of zero; To have a blood benzo level of zero (Xanax/Klonopin/Ativan/etc have warnings on them for a reason, bluehairs!); to generally count as what we might call "sane" and not suddenly express their self loathing with suicide-by-head-on-collision. I "respect" them only in the same way I "respect" a pissed-off badger - I do my best to avoid them.
I have no idea why you would purchase the Americanized smart car. It seems like a waste of space. I just purchased the Canadian/European model which uses a diesel engine. Instead of a sissy 40 MPG I get about 70-74 MPG. Its intense, now I get to scoff at all of the people who drive vehicles other than mine because there isn't much that can beat it for gas mileage. I'm just glad I bought mine before this crap happened.
Besides, you can park perpendicularly in a street that only allows parallel parking.
Does Mercedes offer an address to send all your parking tickets to?
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
I just rented out a Smart for two days this week.
:(
I was skeptical at first, but figured I'd rent it for the experience. Having driven it for two days I'm a total convert. When you get into it, you notice that it not only has plenty of room inside for two people and their stuff, but that you actually sit higher up than in most regular cars. The car seems quite stable, even at speed up to 100kmh and probably faster, but I didn't really have a chance to take it any faster an this.
The suspension is maybe a bit too hard and sporty in it's feel, you can feel rough roads a bit too well. The interior quality was excellent and I like the dash design. The seats were very comfy and it was very easy to find a good seating position. Like I said, there's plenty of room for even big and tall people.
The engine is small and turbo charged and has plenty of oomh, though only at higher rpm's and you have to wait for the turbo to spool. It has six gears and an automatic transmission. You can use the shifter to go up and down the gears on your own or switch it into automatic. My only gripe is the automatic taking way too long to downshift when you want to surge, but supposedly that's been fixed in the newer version (ours was the 1st gen).
Really truly the best part was the pitiful amount of fuel it used. I filled the tank up as soon as I got it, and the gauge indicated a full tank (a very unscientific 5 bar gauge) when I returned it to the rental place. I actually felt a bit cheated by it, since I didn't use most of the gas I put in the tank
Like I said, I have reservations about high speed handling in an emergency. I've seen the crash test videos, and I believe the car to be safe enough in crash, it's avoiding one I'm still not sure about. The car does have every electronic measure available, ABS, stability control and other stuff, but I didn't want to test it on public roads.
On the other hand, most SUV's will flip easily if you do a high speed left-right, so it's a matter of being careful I guess.
My other gripe is the transmission, though I can live with it and as I said, it's been fixed in the newer model.
All in all, I'm seriously looking into buying one as a second car. A Smart would fulfill about 95% of my motoring needs, but I would still need my current large gas guzzler for transporting more than me and my spouse and driving to see our relatives through elk infested wintry roads at night.
Some say he is made with ascii, others that he is eyeballed daily by millions. All we know is, he is known as the Sig
The previous model of Smart got barely three stars(http://www.crash-test.org/marques/resultat.
And the Smart's handling. Pathetic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfguxvWPRZE
Trolls are like broken clocks. They show the truth two times a day. The rest of the day they talk nonsense.
The Smart roadster will not be released at all because it is no longer in production by Smart
So smaller vehicles are the answer......guess we need semis and trains the size of pickup trucks.
That, or we need to be as strict with the licensing for every car as we currently are with the license for a semi or train. If you are going to drive a vehicle that is that dangerous to everyone else on the road, shouldn't you have to meet much stricter requirements?
We are all just people.
But at 40mpg and $14,000 it's basically a 2 seat Civic. And my next car will probably be a one year old Civic.
And you can be sure that the rednecks down here in NC will pass some kind of law making it prohibitively expensive or uninsurable. Because as we all know, small is faggoty Eurocommunism. Down here in AMERICA, guldurnit, 75% all new Veee-hick-ul registrations are trucks and SUVs. Learn the damn rules.
but..
its
a
wall
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ju6t-yyoU8s
I'm a big retard who forgot to log out of Slashdot on Mike's computer! LOOK AT ME.
Am I missing something on fuel standards? I had an 89 Honda CRX which looks like it was bigger than a smart car and it got 50mpg even when I had run 250000+ miles on it. I now have a BMW 328i sport coupe that gets in the high 30s and has 267hp. Why would I want a little car like that if I only get 40? Other than it is cheap and cute. But just purely on economic and enviromental impact, I don't get it.
I agree with you. I drive the "poor-man's" German car - a VW Golf. It doesn't have the BMW logo (or price), but is just as safe. The very first thing I noticed about the VWs, BMWs, etc. are the heavy doors. My boss drives a BMW and was broadsided by a pickup. The pickup was smashed up but the only damage he had was the electronics in the door. He says his car is tank. I feel the same way in my VW. I forget that the doors are flimsy when I get into my friends' Toyotas and always slam them hard. I can physically feel the difference in safety getting into a German car (tank) vs. a Jap car (coffin on wheels).
I witnessed a huge accident at my local college. Some hotshot was speeding in his "ricer" and ran the light. That caused a chain reaction as he hit other Jap cars, a BMW, and a Mercedes. The Jap cars were pretty smashed up and the ambulance had to rush the drivers to the hospitals. However, the BMW's and Mercedes's drivers were fine. Their front ends were smashed in, but the driver & passenger compartments were fine. If you blocked out the front end, you couldn't even notice they were in a horrible car accident.
The only cars I ever buy from now on will be German. I can't wait until the new diesel engines are made available in the US. They run just as clean as gasoline and get better mileage. However, I will not give up safety for a few extra MPG's. I would rather pay more at the pump than pay for the rest of my life as a cripple if I get into an accident. Maybe my attitude will change once all the SUVs, full-sized pickups, and 18-wheelers are off of our roads some years after post-Peak Oil, but for the meantime I also want myself and my family to be in a tank when we are on the road.
That's okay; the Smart Fortwo only seats two people anyway (hence the name), so it can't carry soccor moms' "babies!"
... but if she plows through an Accord or a Neon somebody's still gonna die. Best not to have the accident in the first place, but that would require accepting some responsibility and actually learning how to drive. Frankly, given the poor track record of SUV drivers as a class, I think they should be required to obtain a CV license. What, that's too much trouble? Tough ... get a minivan.
... much as I detest fools with clamshells glued to their heads I dislike my government assuming that I am one even more. And I really can't stand it when government bans specific behaviors with the express (albeit unstated) purpose of increasing ticket revenues.
Besides, the reason soccer moms drive those damn SUVs is that they are just as hooked on the feeling of power as any male driver: maybe more. They may say "It's for the children!" but that's unadulterated pure baloney. There are plenty of comparatively safe vehicles that don't require a V8, enclose enough space to serve as an aircraft hangar, and need a "WIDE LOAD" sign on the back.
If they cared about those babies (much less all the other women around them driving their babies) they'd drive their vehicles more safely. If they really cared they wouldn't have chosen an overpowered four-wheeled behemoth in the first place. Sure, our hypothetical soccer mom may be more likely to survive an accident in a Yukon
Regardless, cell phone usage should be treated the same way as any other potentially dangerous behavior: we'll trust you to know what you're doing until you screw up. Then we'll take it away from you until you learn your lesson. Pre-emptive banning and presumptive ticketing are punitive and paternal
Focusing on a single attribute of an overarching problem is typical behavior of politicians who either don't know how to deal with the issue, or know that they'll never convince the population to do what has to be done to fix it. Bad driving is becoming endemic to our society: cell phones contribute to that but they are not the root of the evil. Matter of fact, trying to fix this particular problem with laws and penalties is akin to trying to cure diarrhea by tinkering with your toilet.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I'm sorry to have to burst your bubble, but 40mpg is nothing. Most cars in the UK can do this. My 1987 Vauxhall Astra (1.3L engine, petrol) regularly gave me 43mpg (and lasted 13 years before it was written off by thieves. My girlfriends Skoda Octavia 1.9L diesel can get about 60mpg on a good run and averages 54mpg including urban commuting. If you don't know what a Skoda Octavia is it is an Audi A4 with a different skin styling - made by VW/Audi group - they own Skoda and Seat.
It is a true indictment of how wasteful car designs and usage are in the US that you think 40mpg is newsworthy. BTW, your $3.50/gallon petrol is cheap. We pay £0.97 per litre - thats $1.94 per litre to you, or about $9 per gallon. So when you complain about your "high" US petrol, sorry, gas, prices, you are complaining about something that is not high at all.
Suddenly I have a mental image of the mythbusters creating a cooking robot to try to make breakfast while another robot sets the cruise control while taking its hands off the wheel...
After all, nobody could envision the car wandering off the road under this scenario without a proper test, could they?
Fully agree. Given the various harms monster vehicles cause, the only way to rationally preserve people's freedom to drive them is to take steps to make their owners bear the costs imposed on all other motorists by their self-indulgent vehicle choice.
First, increase the gas tax until the drivers of heavier vehicles are paying their fair share of the road repair bill. (There are very rational arguments for subsidizing road wear caused by heavy vehicles, such as semis, used commercially. There are no rational arguments for subsidizing excess road wear by mindlessly heavy personal vehicles.)
Second, actuarially increase insurance premiums for large, poorly performing vehicles until they are in line with the extra deaths caused by those vehicles in collisions with rationally sized vehicles.
Third, given that truck-based vehicles in particular are much more challenging to drive safely than average cars (as they take much longer to stop, have less body control which means more likelihood of losing grip, and are far more prone to rollover), require special licensing. Of course given the variety of vehicles on the road any line we draw between normal vehicles and heavy, trucklike vehicles is likely to be arbitrary. But I'll propose one anyway: To drive a vehicle for personal use that is EITHER over 5000 pounds empty OR over 78" tall, you need a Class C CDL with the attendant training and much tougher skills test.
That's just silly ...
...
I have a wife and one child. I also have two cats. My sedan is fine to drive around the city but when we want to drive to our other home two adults, one child and two cats (in carriers) will not fit so we're going to need to get an SUV just to manage that. (We don't have one atm, but we plan on one.)
If you have one or two kids and a pet or two an SUV is just practical, it's nothing to do with a 'power trip' or whatever.
I will admit a station wagon would also work but I couldn't possibly
]{
Or a minivan. Or a crossover.
You realize that what you've just admitted is that you're ...
1) putting most other drivers around you at risk, because of your high bumpers, poor braking and handling, and excess weight; ...
2) paying who knows how much extra in gas, and putting the resulting extra CO2 into the atmosphere;
3) actually *sacrificing* space compared to rational people-moving vehicles (because of your high floor and long hood)
... because you're insecure about how you look.
This test was performed with an the old model of the smart fortwo. My wife leased 2 fortwos each for one year. I drove it and it wasn't that bad. Moreover the new smart fortwo that is sold in Europe since 2007 and will be sold in the US in 2008 has been redesigned and optimized. (cf www.smart.com). The new one is considered as a "car" in the US. and that was not the case for the previous one, that's why smart wasn't able to sold them in the US in the past.
No trunk. Less space than a Prius. Lame.
I got a VW rabbit (diesel) in 1980 that got 55 mpg highway and 42 mpg city.
How come I can't get a car with better mileage than that by now?
Already done!
Oh, wait, you meant making semis and trains smaller, didn't you? Nevermind.
"Hey, the third matrix movie would have been good except for the plot,story, and acting." --AC
Help him out. The myth is reviewed at snopes.com. Maybe his dad reads snopes just for stories to unload on him.
My father drives a semi and he couldn't agree with you more! His favorite object of complaint are the large motor homes that people drive and he makes a good argument: How can a person drive something that is potentially bigger then his semi (compared to when he's pulling a short trailer) do so without any special treatment, especially when they are more likely to be old.
It probably doesn't help that we live in the retirement state (Florida).
We've had smartCars available in Canada since late 2004/early 2005, and I see them frequently on the road here (Winnipeg). It never fails, anytime I mention that I wouldn't mind getting one, people always bring up the crash/safety issue. Try to argue that I commonly ride my bicycle in heavy traffic, not willingly - there aren't many cycling paths here - that's dangerous. People ride motorcycles at high speeds - that's dangerous too. Why is everyone a safety freak when it comes to the smartCar? Incidentally, from my personal experience, males are much more opposed to the car than females are.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got some idea balls to remove from a manatee tank.
Try two adults and four kids. That was my family when we were growing up. We never had an SUV. The typical seating arrangement when we all went somewhere was Mom and Dad up front with one kid between them and three kids in the back. Was it cramped? Sure, but rare were the times when we all had to be piled into the car at the same time.
Nowadays, I would suggest against that arrangement for safety reasons (this was when most cars didn't even have seat belts). Still, there is nothing wrong with two adults up front and three kids (or one kid and two cats, in carriers) in the back of any modern sedan.
I can't believe that someone out there actually thinks that two adults, one child, and two cants (in carriers) will not fit in a sedan. I mean, really. Damn. Not only can they safely fit, but quite comfortably.
By your standard, almost every family in the country should have an SUV.
Because until very recently, most people weren't willing to pay extra for, or use as a selling point when choosing between vehicles, fuel economy.
It's really only since the price of gas has hit $3/gal(US) that anyone here in the 'States has started to care about fuel efficiency. At least in the mainstream market -- the VW Diesels have always been popular with some folks I know (and I used to own one, great car) who were really into fuel economy, but the price-premium you pay for the diesel engine doesn't pay for itself in gas savings for upwards of 150k miles in late-90s gas prices. That's longer than many Americans own cars for. (At least, it's longer than many Americans who buy new cars -- and consequently have the most direct effect on what auto makers produce -- keep their cars for.)
Personally I find the popularity of hybrids interesting, because it's mostly irrational, at least in the financial sense: when you factor in the upfront cost and eventual battery maintenance, a hybrid is an even slower payoff than a diesel (there was a good analysis of them in Consumer Reports fairly recently), yet they've become far more popular. I think it's because of the "green" cachet they have, and because some places give you nice bennys for driving them (drive in the HOV with one passenger, special parking, toll discounts, etc. I know a lot of people who bought hybrids just for the HOV privileges last year).
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
Never happen
Detroit and Exxon/Mobil would have a field day lobbying and claiming lost jobs to the politicians that run the government. Ford makes maybe 1-2,000 for each Ford Focus. Meanwhile they make $9,000 for each Ford Explorer sold. Maybe this is why they have been refusing to put fuel cell focuses on the market? Its clear what their financial interests are.
SUV owners would revolt and vote. Most rich white voters who are male and own such vehicles vote more than any other group which is why the republicans have been winning so many elections. You do not want to piss them off.
Also we do already subsidize suvs and trucks. Why do you think are premiums have been rising so much over 7 years? To pay suv owners so theirs do not go up as much and revolt.
http://saveie6.com/
You know I am not planning to get a Suburban or anything like that. I consider a crossover a small SUV. I have no special love for the SUV. I've never owned one and I am happy with my existing sedan.
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Anyway to answer your questions
1) Actually, according to consumer reports. The SUV I plan to buy is as safer as the sedan I drive
2) Hybrid
3) I tested my requirements and 2 adults, 2 children with safety seats and 2 pets in carriers all work. This is purely a question of the design of the vehicle. I am buying it for space so I obviously made a point of checking.br
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P.S. Cat Carriers + Cabin Area in car accident = Flying Cats of Death. Put the animals in the loose luggage--err cats in the trunk where they belong.
The burden of gas taxes disproportionately falls on the poor, not the rich people who are driving the large, luxury SUVs. Gas taxes are flat, $ per gallon taxes, which means, all things held constant, that a poorer person is paying more than a richer person. But, all things are not held constant, you say? Too true. The rich can afford new cars that get better gas mileage, whereas a poorer person must drive the car they have, which is likely to be an older, less efficient car. Connecting the dots, that means the rich are likely paying less per mile than the poor person. If the function of a gas tax is to pay for wear and tear done on the roads by vehicles, then it would seem logical to tax the travel, not the fuel. This doesn't even get into the whole debate over alternative fuels or electric vehicles, which would completely bypass any/all vehicle fuel taxes.
Keep in mind GM pays no income taxes.
Need Mercedes parts ?
Just shows how backwards US trucks are. In the EU, they've a plethora of safety features required as standard. ABS on the trailers has been mandatory for a decade and a half and ABS on the trailers is now being replaced by EBS where every single wheel can be braked to a different level. Also EU lorries have been moving from drum to disc brakes for quite some time too. Add to that the improvements in rear/side visibility.
Conor "You're not married,you haven't got a girlfriend and you've never seen Star Trek? Good Lord!" - Patrick Stewart
While I agree that the Oil Titans and the Auto Executives are working together to screw working people (I recently aquired a 13 year old Honda that averages 45mpg, and higher on the freeway), Ford is not a good example of how to run an automobile company.
This 'Smart' car should get at least 50mpg. They've probably just geared it for performance, and not fuel economy. Another way to make sure no one can hide from the oil companies' money vacuum.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
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