Smaller and cheaper is the direction I’d like to see cars, and especially EVs take. It seems so inefficient to proliferate large, very heavy vehicles, just to move one or two people around. Most people’s transportation needs almost certainly are to go to work and shopping, but vehicles seem optimized for family cross-country road trips.
Smaller vehicles need smaller batteries, smaller motors, less energy to move, and put less wear and tear on public infrastructure. If the interiors are nice, I think there would be a market for them. Perhaps government policy could encourage efficient use of valuable resources too.
PaulHoule•4mo ago
Dealers hate it because there's a certain kind of person who could afford a $50k vehicle but is perfectly happy to walk out with a $20k vehicle and drive it for 10 years until it gets totaled or completely falls apart and the dealer won't get another chance until then -- a tragedy from their point of view.
alephnerd•4mo ago
Then the Yaris, Fit, and Accent wouldn't have been discontinued in the US and Canada, and the Nissa Versa would be selling like hotcakes like in Mexico.
If most consumers can afford a large car, they ended up buying a larger car.
The overlap of high income earners and those cars was not significant from a PMF standpoint.
CUVs and Hatchbacks seem to be the best middle ground for both types of consumers.
PaulHoule•4mo ago
It's not just "high income" people who buy expensive cars, it is also "car poor" people that aren't saving for retirement or complaining that the rent is too damn high because they're paying another $400 a month on the car payment that they don't need to pay.
Now maybe I live in an unusual area but all the time I have people park a Honda Fit that looks just like mine at a car parking lot. When my last Fit got totalled I found that (1) they didn't have any new Fits, (2) they had one used Fit that they had just bought that morning, and (3) they had a neat row of 50 or so HR-Vs that nobody wanted to buy.
If you actually go to a car dealer looking for a size L car they will try to sell you an XXL car, if you go looking for an M car they try to sell you an XL, if you go looking for an S they will try to sell you an L. They have a lot of tricks they play to do this, not least a manipulation of the narrative, the threat of pulling away access to review vehicles from car publications that question their narrative, etc. Sure a lot of people are scared by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, other people really like a big car or would rather roll their car or crash through the guardrail than break their ankle in a crash. But no matter how big of a car you want, they want you to buy a bigger one.
alephnerd•4mo ago
The Fit, Yaris, and Accent would have seen significant uptake for over a decade if this hypothesis was true though - both amongst low income and upper income buyers.
Yet the data just doesn't justify the narrative that "small cars" have a PMF in the US and Canada.
I get that you and a subset of people really like small cars, but you cannot justify funding low uptake SKUs just because some people like something.
> they didn't have any new Fits
Because the Fit was discontinued in 2020 because most Americans and Canadians just weren't buying it.
PaulHoule•4mo ago
That's what the public relations people say. The evidence of my eye was that there 50 HR-Vs in a row that nobody wanted to buy and that the dealer's plan was to get me to buy one of those instead. Of course sales of the Fit are going to be low if they don't have any in stock and they pressure you into buying an HR-V.
My dad had the exact same thing happen to him at American car dealers in the 1970s -- supposedly they had small cars for sale but actually they didn't. Today it is Japanese car dealers doing the same thing.
Before the pandemic (discounts disappeared) I used to see big-ass trucks with decals advertising $7000 off. If people really wanted those cars they wouldn't have to discount them to sell them, instead you'd see $7000 discounts on the small cars that supposedly people don't want to buy.
alephnerd•4mo ago
Is Ithaca representative of the American consumer? Conversely, is Tulsa?
Using a single regional data point does not provide proof that there is a financial reason to start building Honda Fits again.
And before the pandemic, the HRV began outselling the Honda Fit in the US by 2016 [0]
The industry has a lot of power to manipulate perception. Notably there has been a lot of complaint that cars are too expensive now and smaller cars could be an answer to that even if people like bigger cars. One of the biggest successes now is the Ford Maverick and like any other kind of sub-XL vehicle demand exceeds supply in the lot just about everywhere.
That data is all bogus anyway, it reflects the cars that get made, not the cars that people want to buy because the cars that nobody wants to buy get bought by Hertz ina form of ‘demand laundering’. Of course it means you have a bd experience and think I’ll never by an American car though the reality is that I probably won’t buy another Honda because they canceled the fit although they have no data at all that can prove that. Just data that the dealer but 100 HR-Vs which are smaller in the inside and now it is the dealer’s problem.
alephnerd•4mo ago
So you are saying your gut feeling is a better source of truth on the state of the entire industry in North America without any proof?
> I probably won’t buy another Honda
I mean that is your perogative. You can find another brand that better aligns with your needs. I think Nissan has come to own that market, and their American cars are fairly reliable now.
> answer to that even if people like bigger cars. One of the biggest successes now is the Ford Maverick
Yep. But it's not a subcompact hatchback like the Honda Fit. Which is what I am getting at - the subcompact hatchback just doesn't have significant PMF in the US by the 2020s.
Small cars are an opportunity, but it will primarily be CUVs and compact pickups.
ungreased0675•4mo ago
Quality also has something to do with it. In the US, small cars generally are the budget option. Lots of plastic trim, cloth seats, limited options. Perhaps the demand was for nice cars, not just small vs big?
8bitsrule•4mo ago
That makes A LOT of sense. $30-40K for a behemouth, or $10+K for daily-duties stuff. I -suspect- the US market for this stuff has been there for many years ... like the market for the VW Bug in prior decades.
deafpolygon•4mo ago
Bring it to the Netherlands, too! We also need more smaller EV cars.
bzzzt•4mo ago
There's plenty of choice in the Netherlands just for small electric cars:
Honda E, Fiat 500E, Corsa E, BMW i3, Mini electric, Nissan Leaf, Renault Zoe (or even Twizy), Smart Fortwo EQ, Citroen C-zero, Dacia Spring
If that's not small enough there are city cars like Citroen Ami and others but those are more glorified golf carts with very limited range.
mrbigbob•4mo ago
while id love a more affordable EV for sure I dont see that happening anytime soon in the US with current administrations hatred of electric vehicles. Second, i dont understand how a website dedicated to car news thinks a very small car will sell well in the US when it sadly seems clear to me that the vast majority prefer larger cars for at least the last 30 years.
ungreased0675•4mo ago
Smaller vehicles need smaller batteries, smaller motors, less energy to move, and put less wear and tear on public infrastructure. If the interiors are nice, I think there would be a market for them. Perhaps government policy could encourage efficient use of valuable resources too.
PaulHoule•4mo ago
alephnerd•4mo ago
If most consumers can afford a large car, they ended up buying a larger car.
The overlap of high income earners and those cars was not significant from a PMF standpoint.
CUVs and Hatchbacks seem to be the best middle ground for both types of consumers.
PaulHoule•4mo ago
Now maybe I live in an unusual area but all the time I have people park a Honda Fit that looks just like mine at a car parking lot. When my last Fit got totalled I found that (1) they didn't have any new Fits, (2) they had one used Fit that they had just bought that morning, and (3) they had a neat row of 50 or so HR-Vs that nobody wanted to buy.
If you actually go to a car dealer looking for a size L car they will try to sell you an XXL car, if you go looking for an M car they try to sell you an XL, if you go looking for an S they will try to sell you an L. They have a lot of tricks they play to do this, not least a manipulation of the narrative, the threat of pulling away access to review vehicles from car publications that question their narrative, etc. Sure a lot of people are scared by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, other people really like a big car or would rather roll their car or crash through the guardrail than break their ankle in a crash. But no matter how big of a car you want, they want you to buy a bigger one.
alephnerd•4mo ago
Yet the data just doesn't justify the narrative that "small cars" have a PMF in the US and Canada.
I get that you and a subset of people really like small cars, but you cannot justify funding low uptake SKUs just because some people like something.
> they didn't have any new Fits
Because the Fit was discontinued in 2020 because most Americans and Canadians just weren't buying it.
PaulHoule•4mo ago
My dad had the exact same thing happen to him at American car dealers in the 1970s -- supposedly they had small cars for sale but actually they didn't. Today it is Japanese car dealers doing the same thing.
Before the pandemic (discounts disappeared) I used to see big-ass trucks with decals advertising $7000 off. If people really wanted those cars they wouldn't have to discount them to sell them, instead you'd see $7000 discounts on the small cars that supposedly people don't want to buy.
alephnerd•4mo ago
Using a single regional data point does not provide proof that there is a financial reason to start building Honda Fits again.
And before the pandemic, the HRV began outselling the Honda Fit in the US by 2016 [0]
[0] - https://www.honda.com/-/media/Honda-Homepage/PDF/DFB_2024_US...
PaulHoule•4mo ago
That data is all bogus anyway, it reflects the cars that get made, not the cars that people want to buy because the cars that nobody wants to buy get bought by Hertz ina form of ‘demand laundering’. Of course it means you have a bd experience and think I’ll never by an American car though the reality is that I probably won’t buy another Honda because they canceled the fit although they have no data at all that can prove that. Just data that the dealer but 100 HR-Vs which are smaller in the inside and now it is the dealer’s problem.
alephnerd•4mo ago
> I probably won’t buy another Honda
I mean that is your perogative. You can find another brand that better aligns with your needs. I think Nissan has come to own that market, and their American cars are fairly reliable now.
> answer to that even if people like bigger cars. One of the biggest successes now is the Ford Maverick
Yep. But it's not a subcompact hatchback like the Honda Fit. Which is what I am getting at - the subcompact hatchback just doesn't have significant PMF in the US by the 2020s.
Small cars are an opportunity, but it will primarily be CUVs and compact pickups.
ungreased0675•4mo ago