<story><title>Americans&apos; love affair with big cars is killing them</title><url>https://www.economist.com/interactive/united-states/2024/08/31/americans-love-affair-with-big-cars-is-killing-them</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>PaulHoule</author><text>I hate sounding like a broken record but my belief is that car makers are more excited about XXXXL cars in American than car buyers are.  The media is consistently complicit in covering this up,  sounding like the brainwashed soldiers in &lt;i&gt;The Manchurian Candidate&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s not to say that we don&amp;#x27;t like big cars because we do,  but walk into a car dealership looking for a small car and they will tell you they are out of stock of new ones of the model you want because the factory washed out in a flood but then they have 100 SUVs in a row unsold that nobody wants to buy &lt;i&gt;made in the same factory&lt;/i&gt;.  Your only choice is a used return that somebody sold back to them &lt;i&gt;yesterday afternoon.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Go into a dealership looking for an S car and they will try to sell you an L,  go in looking for an M and get an XL and so forth.  If you drive out with a $25,000 car when you could could of driven out with a $50,000 car they perceive it as a $25,000 loss!  No wonder mainstream car brands can&amp;#x27;t sell electrics.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Tanoc</author><text>This is true to a ridiculous extent.&lt;p&gt;Ford has no compact hatchback or sedan in the U.S., only the Brazilian built EcoSport. They killed all their cars in favour of CUVs and SUVs. Chevrolet no longer has the Sonic, having nixed those in 2022. Honda no longer has the Fit as of two years ago. Mitsubishi no longer sells the Mirage as of last month. Dodge hasn&amp;#x27;t had anything since the Dart died in 2016. The Jeep Renegade&amp;#x27;s gone as of October of last year. Hyundai had the Veloster, but those are all sold as top trim Veloster Turbo Premiums or Ns even when they were being sold. The current Hyundai Ioniq 5 is more of a mid-size and is also expensive for the size. Kia has the Forte, but it&amp;#x27;s dragging out a slow death this year. Toyota has the Yaris and Prius C, but the Yaris has grown quite large, and the Prius C is quite high priced. Nissan killed the Versa Note in 2022, so you can&amp;#x27;t get those either.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s all been replaced with &amp;quot;compact&amp;quot; CUVs that have the exterior dimensions of a mid-size hatchback.</text></comment>
<story><title>Americans&apos; love affair with big cars is killing them</title><url>https://www.economist.com/interactive/united-states/2024/08/31/americans-love-affair-with-big-cars-is-killing-them</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>PaulHoule</author><text>I hate sounding like a broken record but my belief is that car makers are more excited about XXXXL cars in American than car buyers are.  The media is consistently complicit in covering this up,  sounding like the brainwashed soldiers in &lt;i&gt;The Manchurian Candidate&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s not to say that we don&amp;#x27;t like big cars because we do,  but walk into a car dealership looking for a small car and they will tell you they are out of stock of new ones of the model you want because the factory washed out in a flood but then they have 100 SUVs in a row unsold that nobody wants to buy &lt;i&gt;made in the same factory&lt;/i&gt;.  Your only choice is a used return that somebody sold back to them &lt;i&gt;yesterday afternoon.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Go into a dealership looking for an S car and they will try to sell you an L,  go in looking for an M and get an XL and so forth.  If you drive out with a $25,000 car when you could could of driven out with a $50,000 car they perceive it as a $25,000 loss!  No wonder mainstream car brands can&amp;#x27;t sell electrics.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>roughly</author><text>As folks elsewhere have noted, CAFE standards make &amp;quot;light&amp;quot; trucks substantially more profitable than other cars, and so yes, car makers have pushed them aggressively, including with strong marketing campaigns for the last 20 years or so.&lt;p&gt;All of the arguments from car manufacturers that they&amp;#x27;re just &amp;quot;answering consumer demand&amp;quot; ignores the point that they manufactured that demand. Change the tax structures and incentives, make trucks as expensive for the manufacturer as they are for society, and you&amp;#x27;ll see a renaissance of small cars, advertising extolling the virtues of small cars, and a societal shift towards small cars.</text></comment>