Is this a good time to buy a new car? I wonder. It looks like a new generation of fuel efficient and cheap cars is only 3 or 4 years around the corner. Maybe they're worth waiting for.
European "Smart Cars", which get 40 miles to the gallon, are being sold here now. That's an electric model above. Sorry, no specs.
Consumer Reports tested The Smart Car last year and panned it. They said it was noisy, hard to handle, infuriatingly slow to accelerate, and expensive. They said it didn't live up to the hype.
The car is made by Mercedes-Benz, and sells for a premium price relative to its size. Consumer Reports says it appears to be both well-made and shoddy, depending on which element has your attention.
The car is so small that you can park it like this (above) and not stick out in traffic too much.
How do you like these vertical European Smart Car dealerships? Just when I had these cars on my mind someone on the radio said that the most fuel efficient line of cars on the American road is made by General Motors. Is that true?
Here's the Tata Nano which will sell in India for $1500 or $2500, depending on which article you read. Tata is thinking about selling the car in South America and Africa for $4,000, and maybe Europe for $5,000. That won't be any time soon. Right now the company can't keep up with demand in India. They have to have a lottery to determine who'll be allowed to buy them.
The Nano (above) has an upper limit of 65 mph.
India's other cheap car (above), still more pricey than the Nano, is the Maruti 800. Newer versions have more and more luxury features, so maybe they intend to leave the lowest price field to the Nano. The Chinese QQ3Y Chery is supposed to be cheap but I couldn't find out anything about it.
Wait til you see, other cars will come along to compete with the cars I just described. There seems to be no limit to how small a car can be made.
Maybe we'll see single driver 3-wheeled cars. Three wheels qualifies the car as a motorcycle in California, and that means they can be made cheaper and have to meet fewer standards than 4 wheeled cars.
I understand they can better the ecosystem but I think the environment can take the pain until they make a vehicle that looks prettier. I would rather drive one that looks like an old fashioned car.
ReplyDeleteHi Eddie, The one thing everybody is NOT considering about Electric Cars is that: Electricity comes from the power station which operates it's generators with "Fossil Fuel".....So they are still dependent on oil! just in a round-about way!
ReplyDeleteThe smallest one today is 4 nanometers across!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.livescience.com/technology/051020_nanocar.html
:P
I think any non-hybrid fuel-efficient car is going to be small and probably a little noisy at high speeds. Also I think in general subcompact-type cars are geared toward a less luxury-seeking, predominantly city-driving audience. Rich people do not buy subcompact cars--maybe because gas prices don't mean all that much to them?
ReplyDeleteI know both Toyota and Chevy have subcompact models, but when I bought my Toyota (a Yaris) in November '07, it was the best as far as fuel efficiency, durability, future resale value, brand reputation, etc. I'm not sure if any of the American companies beat it now, but if they do, you wouldn't notice around here. Maybe people are talking about the old Geo Metros from the '80s and '90s, which got 45-50 mpg. When I was a kid they had a reputation for being deathtraps, though, so I wouldn't buy one.
Wait until your Cheap, Fuel-Efficient Car gets plowed into by a '72 Gran Torino or a riding lawn mower.
ReplyDeleteI just love having these toys shoved down my throat by government. If it's not happening in your state then give it time.
Brian O.
The American companies still can't compete with the subcompacts built by either Toyota or Honda. They put all their eggs in expensive SUVs and Hummer type crap, due to the bigger profit margins. They're paying for that greedy mistake now. The last car Uncle Eddie posted, the little green one, could easily be customized to look exactly like Popeye's head.
ReplyDeleteHow do you like these vertical European Smart Car dealerships?
ReplyDeleteIt looks like a big vending machine. Put a coin in the slot, pull the handle and get a car -a toy car.
Electricity comes from the power station which operates it's generators with "Fossil Fuel".....So they are still dependent on oil! just in a round-about way!
Yahbut it still works out better, and the sources for electricity can be constantly improved.
The cars can also feed power they don't need back into the grid at night. It's potentially much more efficient.
As for the rich, I guess there will always be something for them to buy. Problems arise when the rest of us prematurely aspire to the same toys.
The correlation between a bigger, more luxurious car and a greater feeling of personal importance has long been established by Madison Avenue. It will be interesting to see what that sales model morphs into as they convince us all to go down the road crouched over in egg cartons.
I'm more interested in safety than anything. if they want to sell me a new car, it should incorporate a roll cage.
There's of course the ultimate fuel-efficent transportation model: bicycles.
ReplyDeleteI don't have a license and have no intention of getting one.
I read something about these cars,but I didn't know about the chinese one.To be independent of oil What about the air car?
ReplyDeletehttp://deniseletterdeniseletter.blogspot.com/2009/03/air-car.html
(sorry for my writting mistakes)
ReplyDeleteI see dead people....
ReplyDeleteI still like the dumb cars better.
ReplyDeleteIsn't that last picture a Messerschmitt?
As ever, Edwardo, your discursive interests and expositions leave us... wanting to see your artwork instead. Hah! Bless ye, as ye are a gentleman.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, I don't understand why it took so long to get electric/hybrids going. Actually, I do, Big Oil and Big Pollution had a stake in combustion cars.
ReplyDeleteBut, honestly, can anyone believe that in the 21st fucking century the only main way we make wheels turn is to set off a goddamn explosion with gasoline and a sparkplug to move a piston up and down?
Imagine we set off explosions to open doors and shut the blinds.
Wouldn't it be great if every new house or warehouse roof built had solar panels built into them...? There would be HUGE savings in the long run. Right now it's just wasted space. There doesn't seem to be much government and/or industry flexibility or thought into decentralizing the power grid like that. I guess if there is a positive aspect of getting the power from an power plant it is that pollution can be better controlled from a few central points than a few hundred million cars.
ReplyDeleteModern electric cars have a lot of upside to them- an electric motor has almost unlimited torque compared to a gasoline engine. It could mean a lot as far as performance is concerned.
Here's some neat fuel efficient cars from the old days...
1911 Baker Electric
http://www.conceptcarz.com/vehicle/z11282/Baker-Electric.aspx
1958 Nash Metropolitan (40MPG)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikesbig429/214168395/
1967 Austin Healey Sprite (45MPG)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/leftcoastclassics/2976842810/in/set-72157608402858691/
1973 Plymouth "Feather" Duster (36MPG on a 4-liter 6 cyl!)
http://moparmuscle.automotive.com/80743/mopp-0305-1976-plymouth-feather-duster/index.html
These are the type of cars people would only stare at, not buy. The same thing happened with the New Beetle. People were curious, alot bought it for a fair amount of time, then sales started to slide and have been chugging along ever since. They need to design cars that us normal slobs would drive, not metro sexual "post modern" wimps.
ReplyDeleteTata has started the work.Let me wait for 4 years buy new eco car.
ReplyDeleteOh, sure, my comments aren't good enough now!
ReplyDeleteI see how it is!
Steven: Was that you? I accidentally deleted a comment and felt terrible about it. Sorry about that, and I'm glad you spoke up.
ReplyDeleteKris: The Geo Metros got 45-50 mpg in the 80s or 90s! That's amazing!
IDRC: Interesting comment about the roll cage.
Hans: I drove an electric car once and the torque advantage was really impressive!
Darby: Fascinating! I looked up some of the other nano items the article linked too...amazing!
ReplyDeleteDenise: Holy cow! An air car! I wish the video description had been longer.
Hans: Great electric car photos, especially the first one resembling Granny's car in the tweety cartoons.
Here's a whole lotta links to I, Cringely columns addressing our energy and car problems.
ReplyDelete1.
2.
3.
4.
I know it's a lot of reading, what with accompanying links for each column and the comments by the loyal readers and cranks but it is pretty eye opening and fascinating stuff.
The New Beetle has suffered its share of reliability problems. A major problem continues to be that no manufacturers except Honda and Toyota build decent compact and subcompact cars. GM, VW, Ford and Chrysler build junk in that market segment, and it's overpriced junk.
ReplyDeleteThis is my field, so I guess I have to put in my two.
ReplyDeleteIf you care about the future, you can't omit two radically different, but genius vehicles:
http://www.gordonmurraydesign.com/T25.html
http://acabion.com/
This sequential storytelling reminded me of you, Eddie:
http://www.coconino.fr/graphic_post/im_post_003/coupsdoeil/popbilder1.htm
i would drive one of these but i would look like one of those bears you see at the circus driving a tiny, tiny car.
ReplyDeleteyou don't have to post this Eddie.
ReplyDeletethat "katie" post is not from Katie. it's some scumbag trying to start internet drama. they've hit up John's and Vincent's blogs so far. just a heads up.
I wonder how long it'll be before the oil industry finds a way to legally sabatoge this green innovation. I also wonder how many more times we'll let corporations dictate what's good for us based on their quarterly dividend.
ReplyDeleteJust wondering is all. In the corporations' defense, their gas guzzlers are a lot more to look at. These smart cars remind me of the ride that Steve Urkel used to sport.
- trevor.
I wonder who did the fake Katie blog?
ReplyDeletewerent there some grass photos on the internets of an accident involving a smart, with the driver torn aprt right in the middle?
ReplyDeletei personally just dont like the smart design wise, its the last car i would get... they got some for the police in austria, and they look ridiculous as police cars.
not that i dont like small cars, i love those boxy types they have here in japan a lot. they look functional and they propbly are.
Why can't we just design cars like we did in the 50s? Why does everything have to be so ugly?
ReplyDeleteI was listening to the commentary on the South Park episode making fun of hybrids and the guys said that cars that are designed to look like their gas guzzling counterparts sell a lot worse than cars that "look" like hybrids. Which means a lot of people only drive hybrids for show.
That last little blue number makes me think of a song... Brazil!!! Da daaaaa da da dun dun...
ReplyDelete