Cars cars cars... aaargh

OK, I've gone from keen contributor to the motoring fan club to being a fairly staunch critic. I've owned lots of cars - 2 VW Golfs, 2 Ford Escorts, 2 Suzuki Swift Gtis and 3 Alfas for starters - and haven't stinted in using them. What I have - so far - managed is to remain sub-2.2 litres and always a four cylinder. (An Alfa GTV6 remains tempting at 2.5 or 3 litres, though) Even with 3 kids I have to ask why would you want to waste money on a big 6 or an 8? To tow stuff? How often? To lug a big load to the tip? What, every day? Just beacuse? Fact is very very few people need more than a Smart City car to do the daily stuff. However in a democracy, particularly a car-crazy one where roads are subsidised by everyone, we get offered what car companies think will make them the best return on investment.

Sure, they need to know what you'll buy, but it's not as though they will throw a design, its tooling and ongoing parts supply (a money spinner) out the window on a whim. They may want to test options like engines or configurations or even colours but they'll know which options will also deliver the best return - for them.

Now car companies will say 'the majority of sampled buyers wanted a turbo 6 over a diesel' but who knows what the questions were, or how well the diesel (or smaller 4) variant was presented to the 'focus group'? Did they paint a picture of rousing or dull performance? What about interior space? Did they mention running costs? Especially with rising petrol costs and the likelihood of more realistic 'user-pays' infrastructure charges coming real soon it's hard to imagine how a broadly based focus group would choose a turbo 6 urban 4wd with off road pretensions over a more practical diesel version of same.

Now the companies aren't stupid but they do have an expensive investment in existing tooling, brand and model value and so on. They may well realise that a smaller family 4 is a better volume seller in teh future anyway, but they have an investment in fat cars and trucks. Or they are a world centre of competence in the design of fat family cars. So they have plenty of skin in this game, ouside of just selling you the car that best fits your needs. Instead they'll invent a so-called 'hero-car' that will have a 'halo effect' on both bog-standard 6es and maybe even those small fours that they import from Korea. They may not be able to stump up the capital to locally build the smaller four that would make so much more sense, however, so they actually need to twist the buyer's arm a bit.

It becomes a marketing battle. If we race this whopping great 8 and get our spoon fed car mag writers to rave about a 'stormin' turbo 6' then we'll probably sell a few more standard family 6es... at least until petrol hits say $3 or $4 ($Australian) per litre. And get a better return than (a) doing nothing or (b) building cars that make sense to the market.

So when they say you wanted a turbo 6 they actually meant a diesel won't help shift the volume item and won't return enough on our investment, so we'll park the diesel for now and pretend this turbo mindblower is the coolest thing since sliced bread. Sheesh. In effect they are also handing the small car market over to Korea (I'm not saying that's bad, btw) and dooming local (Oz) manufacture to its grave (a bad thing for all the workers upstream and down as well, who will have to find alternative work, but from an economist's viewpoint probably not bad because we have subsidised manufacture of the wrong cars for too long).

So here in Australia (let's call it Oz) we get:

• A stormin turbo 6 Falcon-derived late-to-market fat 4wd from Ford (sales dropping faster than the car)
• A new GM 6 and 8 cylinder 'family car' that will probably weigh more than the last one and is unlikely to weigh less, so our fossil fuel footprint is still huge (again sales dropping like flies)
  
• No new diesels from the local manufacturers, but a few imports lined up
• Lots of spin on it's what we want anyway
• And the last roll of the dice, that big cars are safer! Well yeah, but can we afford 'em? Can the world afford much more of this 'a car for everybody' mantra that's sending resource prices ever higher and wreaking dire consequences on city habitability and the world's environment overall?

I have to take a break, this is just soooo depressing. I know, I'll go for a drive!

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