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There are people for whom the SUV is the right family 'car'. (An SUV is really a truck, but that is a different matter). This is a large, upper-income family, or a business-owning family that needs it for transporting certain types of equipment. For everyone else it is the wrong vehicle. It is telling that SUVs have a rapid depreciation not for a lack of quality of manufacture as reflected in frequency of repair, but instead because there is little aftermarket for used SUVs. You can buy a used SUV more cheaply than you can buy a subcompact car of similar age. You can easily figure who would buy a used subcompact car: low-income people who have jobs to which to commute, especially in rural areas. Old pick-ups at least have obvious use at work (farming, construction), which explains why one sees lots of elderly pickups.
To be sure, Ford Motor Company is abandoning the subcompact because it has a low profit margin. It could rationalize selling its own subcompacts because people who buy those while single commuters working as clerks or factory laborers might eventually make the transition from a Ford subcompact to something more lucrative for Ford (its pricier, gas-guzzling vehicles whose customers are willing to put up with a cost of $50 more a month for 'luxury' appointments on a lease).
Of course, to be a true patriot (in Trump's America) one must believe that there is no nobler role in life than to go deeply in debt for overpriced consumer goods and exercise prodigality in the use of energy. Burn that coal! Burn that petroleum! Avoid solar power! Ravage the environment and impoverish your great-grandchildren in cruel ways!
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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And yet, as I pointed out, it's Obama's regulations that are driving the move toward large SUVs, not anything done by Trump.
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(04-29-2018, 08:02 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: And yet, as I pointed out, it's Obama's regulations that are driving the move toward large SUVs, not anything done by Trump.
The auto manufacturers, like just about all businesses, dislike price-sensitive penny-pinchers. We may be seeing a trend for the 1T: the demand that customers fit the product instead of trying to chisel away at cost.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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04-29-2018, 11:47 PM
(This post was last modified: 04-29-2018, 11:54 PM by Eric the Green.)
(04-29-2018, 08:02 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: And yet, as I pointed out, it's Obama's regulations that are driving the move toward large SUVs, not anything done by Trump.
So you're saying gas mileage regulations were not imposed by Obama on SUVs, but only smaller sedans?
The NY Times seems to disagree. All I could read of the article said "Apr 3, 2018 - In 2012, the Obama administration worked with California to set greenhouse gas and efficiency standards for transportation that aimed to roughly double the average fleetwide fuel economy of new cars, S.U.V.s and light trucks by 2025. "
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018...onomy.html
(in my case I have run out of my monthly reading allowance for the New York Times)
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Read my previous post, at the bottom of the first page, for an explanation. If you want all of the details, read the actual regulations that were promulgated.
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Great time for Big Oil -- more consumption and higher prices for motor fuels.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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04-30-2018, 05:55 PM
(This post was last modified: 04-30-2018, 06:38 PM by David Horn.)
(04-29-2018, 12:01 AM) 'Warren Dew Wrote: (04-28-2018, 10:51 AM)David Horn Wrote: (04-27-2018, 09:33 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: It was Obama's regulations that removed the need for companies to build small cars, and allowed them to concentrate on gas guzzling large SUVs - a failed attempt to recover the government's investment in GM.
Based on my reading of legislative history, you are simply wrong on this. This was killed in 2013 and is still pending since 2017. That means that only Presidential intervention has been employed, and not by Obama.
You're confusing regulation with legislation. I'm talking about Obama era regulatory changes to the EPA fuel economy standards, not any changes to legislation. Obama's EPA changed the rules to make fuel economy requirements a function of car size, with a formula that encouraged production of large SUVs. Prior to Obama, there was a single fuel economy standard that was independent of car size, which provided an incentive to produce small vehicles; the Obama administration reversed that incentive to one for producing large vehicles.
This seems to argue otherwise:
![[Image: CAFE-standards.jpg]](http://thehigherlearning.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/CAFE-standards.jpg)
It looks like cars were raised higher. Trucks continued rising at the old rate -- but rising nonetheless. Car standards adjusted to meet industry performance.
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(04-30-2018, 05:55 PM)David Horn Wrote: (04-29-2018, 12:01 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: (04-28-2018, 10:51 AM)David Horn Wrote: (04-27-2018, 09:33 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: It was Obama's regulations that removed the need for companies to build small cars, and allowed them to concentrate on gas guzzling large SUVs - a failed attempt to recover the government's investment in GM.
Based on my reading of legislative history, you are simply wrong on this. This was killed in 2013 and is still pending since 2017. That means that only Presidential intervention has been employed, and not by Obama.
You're confusing regulation with legislation. I'm talking about Obama era regulatory changes to the EPA fuel economy standards, not any changes to legislation. Obama's EPA changed the rules to make fuel economy requirements a function of car size, with a formula that encouraged production of large SUVs. Prior to Obama, there was a single fuel economy standard that was independent of car size, which provided an incentive to produce small vehicles; the Obama administration reversed that incentive to one for producing large vehicles.
This seems to argue otherwise:
It looks like cars were raised higher. Trucks continued rising at the old rate -- but rising nonetheless. Car standards adjusted to meet industry performance.
Obama allowed the market flexibility that comes with a standard for large and small vehicles (both standards rising). This is a good thing.
Some people just like to blame Obama for the impacts of free market choices.
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(05-03-2018, 06:49 PM)Another Xer Wrote: Obama allowed the market flexibility that comes with a standard for large and small vehicles (both standards rising). This is a good thing.
Some people just like to blame Obama for the impacts of free market choices.
If it's determined by regulation, which the fuel economy rules favoring large SUVs were, it's not the free market.
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The free market demonstrated that Ford Motor Company could not build small cars profitably. That could be its manufacturing structure -- that Ford is simply good at making trucks and SUVs, but not boxy little, bland cars that are financial and marketing headaches. Big business divests itself of or abandons unprofitable activities. Ford is not the first automobile manufacturer to abandon the personal automobile while building something else more profitably.
White Motor Company originally manufactured passenger automobiles until other manufacturers out-competed it in that market. It kept making trucks, buses, and defense equipment as late as 1980, when it sold out to Volvo. It had at one time bought out REO Motor Car Company, an early manufacturer of cars which abandoned the passenger car business in favor of heavier vehicles. The demise of both auto manufacturers had nothing to do with standards of fuel efficiency.
But White Motor Company and REO are not quite the household names that Ford is. Ford has shocked many of us for abandoning the low-end new vehicle market. This said, we cannot fault business for abandoning an unprofitable or even marginally-profitable activity rich in headaches. Ford might have sold out its small-car division to someone else -- except that there was no buyer.
[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Motor_Company][/url]
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(05-03-2018, 08:31 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: (05-03-2018, 06:49 PM)Another Xer Wrote: Obama allowed the market flexibility that comes with a standard for large and small vehicles (both standards rising). This is a good thing.
Some people just like to blame Obama for the impacts of free market choices.
If it's determined by regulation, which the fuel economy rules favoring large SUVs were, it's not the free market.
Okay but who cares? The "Free Market" has never really existed. It's monopoly, monopsony, reglation, or a mixture. Today it's easier to get a collaboration between competitors than any time in history. Money always wants it's way.
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(05-03-2018, 08:31 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: (05-03-2018, 06:49 PM)Another Xer Wrote: Obama allowed the market flexibility that comes with a standard for large and small vehicles (both standards rising). This is a good thing.
Some people just like to blame Obama for the impacts of free market choices.
If it's determined by regulation, which the fuel economy rules favoring large SUVs were, it's not the free market.
Right, because SUVs would have the same fuel economy as small cars if it weren't for regulation. <Is there a sarcasm button on this site?>. That damn Obama.
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(04-28-2018, 10:54 AM)David Horn Wrote: (04-28-2018, 05:16 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: (04-26-2018, 08:47 PM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote: (04-26-2018, 08:39 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: Small cars make no sense when the fuel economy standards let SUVs consume 50% more gas than comparably sized cars, and let larger cars consume more fuel than smaller cars, without penalty.
Fix the fuel economy standards, and we'll fix this idiocy.
I'd prefer an oil import tax set high enough to pay for the US continuance in the Mid East shitshow. Folks who shout USA, USA can then show their support in a real way, People will buy more fuel efficient cars due to permanently high gas prices.
While I have no real dog in this fight....my newest car was manufactured in the late 1970s (seriously I stopped being interested in autos sometime after they all started looking alike). I would support having a huge tariff on imported oil. Conviently this would raise prices for oil and oil products in the US leading to even greater use of fracking and other domestic sources.
I'm not so sure that the fuel economy standards have much to do with the trend away from smaller cars by the big three.
If gas is cheap and CAFE standards are killed, the public will buy larger less fuel efficient vehicles. You can argue that this is OK if you wish, but those results are well established from past experience.
I think that the demand for larger vehicles is powered by more than CAFE standards and the price of fuel, while both have their impacts.
As I said I have no real dog in this fight. I have no interest in puchasing a "modern" car except as a means of transport in which case fuel economy and engine longevity are especially relevant but little else matters.
Rather I think the attraction to larger vehicles is due to the perception that they are safer, and in no small part, that they are objects of status. I rather doubt that most consumers (certainly I'm not among them) even consider how many MPG a vehicle gets first unless their budgets are especially tight.
While the past does indicate that correlation, to link the price of fuel and the existance or nonexistance of governmental fuel economy regulations to the demand for light trucks and SUVs is suspect. Correlation does not equal causation after all.
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(05-04-2018, 12:42 PM)Another Xer Wrote: (05-03-2018, 08:31 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: (05-03-2018, 06:49 PM)Another Xer Wrote: Obama allowed the market flexibility that comes with a standard for large and small vehicles (both standards rising). This is a good thing.
Some people just like to blame Obama for the impacts of free market choices.
If it's determined by regulation, which the fuel economy rules favoring large SUVs were, it's not the free market.
Right, because SUVs would have the same fuel economy as small cars if it weren't for regulation. <Is there a sarcasm button on this site?>. That damn Obama.
No but there should be. Unfortunately it would be lost on most of the Boomers. They never really got sarcasm anyway. Thankfully they will mostly be dead soon and I can only hope that their great grandbrats stay the fuck off my lawn.
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